Trials of Myrddin
by Ascended Paladin
Summary: [HONKS] This is going to be a powerful Harry, and a powerful Tonks story, some Dumbledore bashing, some Ron bashing as well, and maybe some others depending on how the mood strikes me. This story is set after OoTP and ignoring HBP all together.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing other than my original ideas; if you recognize it then it isn't mine. **

**Summary; this is going to be a powerful Harry, and a powerful Tonks story, some Dumbledore bashing, some Ron bashing as well, and maybe some others depending on how the mood strikes me. This story is set after OoTP and ignoring HBP all together. This is my first attempt at writing… well anything, other than parking tickets and school essay's so any and all advice would be helpful. Thanks.**

**Ships; Harry/Tonks, Ron/Hermione.**

_**Harry Potter and the Trials of Myrddin**_

What makes a Hero, a hero? Is it that they strive to fight for what's right, not what's easy? Is it that they understand that with great power, comes great responsibility? Or is it something else, something deeper, yet far simpler? Maybe it's just the fact that they willingly risk their lives everyday to not only protect what we hold dear but our very lives as well. Some have said that in every man and woman there is a Hero or villain waiting to be born, and that you can only see them when they are pushed to their limits. In that instant what truly makes them special is laid bare for the world to see…

**Chapter 1: Birds of a Feather;**

**_June 28th _**

'… We thought we would just have a few words with you about Harry' said Mr. Weasley, still smiling.

'Yeah' growled Moody. 'About how he's treated when he's at your place.'

Uncle Vernon's moustache seemed to bristle with indignation. Possibly because the bowler hat gave him the entirely mistaken idea that he was dealing with a kindred spirit, he addressed himself to Moody.

'I am not aware that it is any of your business what goes on in my house -'

'I expect what you're not aware of would fill several books, Dursley,' Moody growled.

'Anyway that's not the point,' interjected Tonks, whose pink hair seemed to offend Aunt Petunia more than all the rest put together, for she closed her eyes rather than look at her. 'The point is, if we find out you've been horrible to Harry -'

'- And make no mistake, we'll hear about it,' added Lupin pleasantly.

'Yes,' said Mr. Weasley, 'Even if you wont let him use the fellytone, -'

Telephone,' whispered Hermione.

'- Yeah, If we get any hint that Potter's been mistreated in anyway, you'll have us to answer to,' said Moody.

Uncle Vernon swelled ominously. His sense of courage seemed to outweigh even his fear of this bunch of oddballs.

'Are you threatening me, sir?' he said, so loudly that passers-by actually turned to stare.

'Yes, I am,' said Mad-Eye, who seemed rather pleased that Uncle Vernon had grasped this fact so quickly.

'And do I look like the kind of man who can be intimidated?' barked Uncle Vernon.

'Well…' said Moody, pushing back his bowler hat to reveal his sinisterly revolving magical eye. Uncle Vernon leapt backwards in horror and collided painfully with the luggage trolley. 'Yes, I'd have to say you do, Dursley.'

He turned from Uncle Vernon to Harry.

'So Potter… Give us a shout if you need us. If we don't hear from you for three days in a row, we'll send someone along…'

Aunt Petunia whimpered piteously. It could not have been planer that she was thinking of what the neighbours would say if they caught sight of these people marching up the garden path.

'Bye, then, Potter,' said Moody, grasping Harry's shoulder for a moment with a gnarled hand.

'Take Care, Harry,' said Lupin quietly. 'Keep in touch.'

'Harry, we'll have you away from there as soon as we can,' Mrs. Weasley whispered, hugging him again.

'We'll see you soon, mate,' said Ron anxiously, shaking Harry's hand.

'Really soon, Harry,' said Hermione earnestly, 'we promise.'

Harry nodded. He somehow couldn't find the words to tell them what it meant to him, to see them all ranged there, on his side. Instead, he smiled, raised a hand in farewell, turned around and led the way out of the station towards the sunlit street, with uncle Vernon, aunt Petunia and Dudley hurrying along in his wake.

Harry didn't get too far outside the train station before he realized that he had no idea where the Dursley's had parked the car. 'Uncle Vernon, where is the car?' Harry asked as he scanned the car park in hopes of finding it.

The only response Harry got from any of the Dursley's was a simple 'Humph!' from uncle Vernon, before he took off towards a familiar looking car.

Harry put his trunk and Hedwig's car in the boot before hopping inside; Harry had decided when he was back at Hogwarts, to tell Hedwig to just meet him at Number 4, since he knew how much Hedwig hated traveling in her cage.

The car ride was long and, thankfully, uneventful, not one of the Dursley's would even so much as look at Harry the entire trip. Aunt Petunia sat staring out the windscreen, off into nothingness, Dudley was mashed up against the other side of the car as hard as he could, given his sheer size, that still didn't leave much room for Harry to sit comfortably. Uncle Vernon was the one that worried Harry though, He hadn't said one word to Harry since they had left the train station, Harry had expected his uncle to lay into him as soon as he was sure they were out of ear shot of the 'freaks', but so far he hadn't, though Harry did notice that as the trip progressed his uncle's face was slowly changing from the pasty white it once was, to the more familiar puce colour that it took whenever he was going to begin yelling. With no one to bother him, Harry, was left to think of the only thing that had been on his mind lately, Sirius, and how Harry had failed him, '_no_' Harry thought '_I as good as killed him'_.

Sometime later Harry was woken out of his musings by the car stopping at what would be his home, no his prison, for the next six weeks. As he looked upon the house he hated with every fiber of his being, he couldn't help but wonder what it was that made Dumbledore think that he would be safe here, sure the blood protection would have helped in the past, but now that Voldemort had Harry's blood running through his veins, would that even be enough. Harry didn't have long to ponder on this before his uncle again broke him from his musings, by slamming the car door and waddling up to the door step of the house.

As the three Dursley's wandered into the house, Harry was left to try and make his own way dragging the trunk and cage behind him, thankfully a few of the professors had helped him out before he left school, by casting a feather light charm on the trunk, allowing him to maneuver it on his own with very little problems. Harry slowly trudged into the house, up the stairs to the smallest bedroom at Number 4, once inside he collapsed onto the bed and fell into a restless slumber.

Before Harry had left Hogwarts for the term, he had lost his godfather in an ambush setup by none other than the darkest, vilest, slimy git on the face of the planet, Lord Voldemort. He and some of his friends had been lured there with the intentions of saving his godfather only to find out that Voldemort had implanted a 'vision' of his godfather being tortured. Near the end of the battle with Voldemort's Death Eaters his godfather, one Sirius Orion Black, had been hit in the chest and thrown through the veil, Harry still wasn't sure what that thing did or what happened to Sirius after he went through the veil, all Harry knew was that he blamed himself for allowing it to happen. Sure Harry wasn't the only one to blame for Sirius' death, Voldemort, Bellatrix, and Dumbledore all played a part in causing Sirius' death, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't get past the fact that he had a hand in it too.

With the loss of Sirius came nightmares, horrible, mind numbing nightmares. Most nights, if he was lucky, he would get three or four hours of sleep before waking up from a nightmare, he would always see the same thing in his nightmares, he would see his friends getting hurt because of him, his godfather getting 'killed', because of him, and Bellatrix getting away with it. After almost two weeks solid of having the same nightmares over and over it was starting to take it's toll on him, he had dark circles under his eyes, which made his eyes look like they were sinking back into his head, his face had begun to loose its colour, and he was starting to loose what little weight he had put on during the school term, and now to top things off his illustrious Headmaster had decided instead of allowing him to be near his 'family' he was to be stuck in this hell hole for the next six weeks. Really though Harry wasn't sure he wanted to be around his 'family', mainly because they would feel they had to try and comfort him, and right now that was the last thing he wanted. He hated it when anyone gave him pity and no matter how hard he tried to rationalize it, that's exactly what they were doing, taking pity on him.

This night was no different than any other since Sirius' death Harry indeed had a night mare, only this one seemed to be even worse than normal. Something had changed in the dream, he wasn't sure what it was yet but he knew that this wasn't the 'normal' dream he had been having.

**Dream**

_Harry surveyed the room, in one corner was Ron and Hermione, both covered in blood and not moving. In the doorway to the other room, was Nevelle laying face down, the lower part of his body missing and part of his innards out for the world too see, and finally he saw Ginny and Luna both seemed to be strapped to adjoining tables, crying. 'You failed us Harry, why did we trust you, YOU FAILED US!'_

'_No! I tried to save you, I tried, please believe me,' Harry cried out._

'_You killed us,' Ron growled_

'_We trusted you, and you lead us to our death,' Nevelle groaned as he pulled himself across the floor towards Harry._

'_No! Please god NO! I didn't mean to, I'm sorry… I'm sorry,' Harry whispered as his voice begun to give out._

'_Oh the great Harry Potter is sorry that will make things all right,' Hermione said with such venom in her voice._

_As Harry backed out of the room to try and get away from the site in front of him he tripped over a body and came crashing to the ground, it took him a moment to realize who it was he fell over, but when he did he almost screamed out in horror, there before him was Remus Lupin, with a large gaping hole in his chest right where his heart was supposed to be._

'_You allowed that traitor wormtail to do this to me, Harry, he killed me because you couldn't protect me,' Remus moaned._

'_No… No this can't be happening, you were all safe just today, this can't be happening,' Harry pleaded as he got up and ran from the room._

_Harry ran into the next and what he saw caused him to skid to a halt and collapse to the ground in shock, there hanging from the wall was Tonks, her head hung limp to the side, she was cut all over and looked like she had been under the Cruciatus curse for a long time. Slowly she begun to stir and speak, 'why did you let them do this to me Harry, I tried to help you, I tried to be your friend, and you allowed them to do this to me, WHY?' _

'_No, No TONKS! Please god NO! This isn't real… Please god don't let this be real,' Harry begun to shake his head, 'all I tried to do is help and… this isn't fair, please forgive me,' he said as a tear ran down his face._

_He was snapped out of it when he felt a hand on his shoulder, when he spun around he saw that he had stopped in front of the veil and it was Sirius standing behind him. _

'_You're a failure, you aren't worthy of my love, but rather than you dying I had to, I will never forgive you,' he said before he flung himself into the veil._

'_SIRIUS NOOOO,' he screamed at the top of his lungs. With this the last of Harry's self control broke and he begun to cry, harder than he ever had before, it seemed to last forever before he heard it, something that would make every witch or wizard cringe in terror, a high pitched cackle, that seemed to surround him and reverberate right down to his very soul 'What lovely dreams your having, and too think you could have stopped them if only you had paid attention to your Occlumency, but you had to try and prove that he was wrong and you were right, you blame him for not letting go of old grudges when you yourself can't let go of them,' the voice hissed before it began to cackle again._

'_Shut up!' Harry screamed._

_Harry turned around and saw him standing there, Voldemort, laughing at Harry's pain and loss, taking pleasure in the sights that surrounded him. Harry knew that this wasn't the real Voldemort standing before him, because his scar wasn't hurting, but that didn't mean that all the rage he felt towards the man, if one can even call him that anymore, wasn't there. _

'_Whatever made you think you could stand against me? You are nothing but a helpless little child, do you really think you can beat me? Why don't we ask your friends?' Voldemort pointed over Harry's shoulder._

_Harry turned to look over his shoulder and saw all his friends standing there looking at him, the entire DA, everyone he had met in the Order, the entire Weasley family, Even his mum and dad, 'What do you think? Can he beat me?' Voldemort asked._

'_NO! He will fail like he failed to protect us!' They yelled back._

'_There you have it, even they don't think you can beat me,' Voldemort hissed before he started laughing again._

'_No… No… I have to beat you… I have to… I have no choice…' he cried as he fell beck to the ground, 'Please forgive me I tried my best to protect you all, please forgive me,' he sobbed to his friends and family._

Harry awoke from his dream to see his uncle raise his bear paw like hand above his head, before it came crashing down on Harry's face, 'SMACK'. 'Wake me up will you, I'll teach you, you little shit,' with that there was another loud smack as Harry was struck again by his uncle. 'Screaming at all hours of the night, I will not stand for your freakiness in my house, and there is nothing those freak friends of yours can do about it,' he finished before he hit Harry again.

Uncle Vernon continued hitting Harry in the stomach, legs, chest, anywhere it wasn't likely to be seen. Harry didn't scream out in pain or even shed a single tear because he knew that would only serve to make his Uncle angrier than he already was. Finally it seemed that his Uncle was beginning to tire because he backed away from Harry, Harry was starting to relax until he saw his uncle take off his belt, and brandish it like a horse whip, buckle out. With each successive strike came a loud crack as the leather and metal met the skin of Harry's body, Harry tried to remain quiet but soon the pain was too much for him and he began to scream out in pain.

Shortly after the first scream left his lips Harry's heard the distinctive 'crack' of someone apparating into the room, he opened his eyes in time to see a blurry figure lunge at his uncle and scream 'Leave him alone Dursley! Stop that you're killing him!' The blurry figure made contact with his uncle only to be struck across the face with such force that they were flung against the wall and slumped to the floor. The voice had sounded familiar to Harry but with the pain he was feeling, not too mention he wasn't wearing his glasses he couldn't tell who it was. 'Shut up you bitch,' Vernon said as he started towards the body against the wall. In an instant Harry knew who it was, there was only one woman on his guard detail, who could apparate,

'TONKS, NO!' Harry screamed, as he jumped out of bed and threw himself between her and his uncle, his muscles were screaming in pain with each movement, but be dammed if he was going to let anyone else get hurt because of him.

'You will not harm her! I will not allow it!' Harry said in an icy steal voice, laced with power as he stared down his uncle.

'Get out of my way boy! I am going to teach that bitch not to come into my house, and if you know what is good for you, you will GET OUT OF MY WAY!' Vernon bellowed the last part as he made to hit Harry in the face again.

Harry ducked under the powerful hand but wouldn't move away, 'I will tell you one more time Dursley, YOU WILL NOT HARM HER!' as he screamed the last part, it felt like a shock wave washed over the room, the window exploded out, the plaster on the walls and ceiling cracked and began to fall down, and Vernon Dursley was thrown backwards across the room and into the closet doors, which buckled under his tremendous weight. 'I have given you warning Dursley, leave now and you may still live the night, otherwise…' He let the threat hang in the air as he made his way over to his now thoroughly scared uncle.

'Your… your n-not a-allowed to do th-that 'freakiness' outside of school, they will chuck you out like we should have done years ago,' Vernon said as he was getting off the ground, starting to get back some of his once lost 'courage'.

'Your right, so ask yourself this, does that make me more or less dangerous? Huh Dursley, what do you think?' Harry now seemed to have a predatory gleam about his eyes, almost as if he wanted his uncle to try again just so he could do something more to him. 'Besides they aren't going to 'chuck me out', as you say, because I am too valuable to them, and they wouldn't want to loose me.' He added with a sad sort of laugh.

'What do you mean your 'too valuable' to them, your nothing but a worthless good for nothing boy, who can't even pull his own weight, what would they need you for?' Vernon countered as he started to once again stalk towards his nephew.

'More than you know Dursley, more than most know, NOW GET OUT OF MY ROOM!' Harry yelled; you could almost see the pure power radiating off of him as he yelled.

'This is still my house you little shit, and if I think you need a good beating then I will give it too you, you hear me I will give it to you!' Vernon yelled thumping himself of the chest, just before he made to have another go at Harry.

Out of no where a yellowish coloured beam of light came shooting from Tonks' position and struck Vernon dead in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground limp with a loud 'thud'. 'Bloody hell!' Harry cursed as he spun around in time to see Tonks pass out again and drop her head back to the floor. Harry raced back over to Tonks, to check and see if she was ok, thankfully she was just sleeping now, though she still had a rather nasty looking bump on the back of her head from where she hit the wall. He carefully picked her up and carried her over to his bed, taking care to make sure the bumps and bruises she had wouldn't hit anything in the process, as he was laying her down he heard his aunt scream.

'W-what have you done to Vernon… you bastard, your killed him!' she screeched as she dropped down beside Vernon.

'Oh shut it you horse faced hag, he's just stunned, he should wake in a few hours, but if he ever so much as thinks about doing a repeat of what happened here tonight I promise, I will kill him… you understand me!' Harry turned to see a horrified look on her face, 'Now kindly get him out of my room, and shut the door behind you.'

'This is our house you little bastard, don't think you can talk to us that way, all your dam screaming started this, you had no right to do this to him,' Petunia Dursley said as she stood up. 'And don't think your little harlot is going to be staying the night, because I won't have it.'

Harry stood up to face his aunt, and she couldn't help but notice that the scared little boy that had once been there, even as late as this past afternoon when they picked him up from the train station, was gone. No longer did he cower from them, no longer was he going to be pushed around without fighting back, no this was no little boy, this was a young man, one who seemed to give off an aura of power that scared her more than she would care to admit, even to herself.

Harry spoke in a low deadly voice as he addressed his aunt, 'you will not speak of her like that, you hear me, you will treat her with the respect she deserves or you will be in no better shape than your worthless husband, do I make myself perfectly clear?' he said pointing towards the still motionless mass on the floor.

Petunia blanched and gave a little squeak before yelling for Dudley to help her move his father into their bedroom.

With the click of the door being shut, Harry moved to sit back down on the edge of the bed, and proceeded to gently stoke her Tonks' hair out of her eyes, and for the first time he noticed that sometime between when he first laid her on the bed and now she had changed her appearance, instead of the bright neon pink hair she normally had she now had what looked to be shoulder length or longer auburn coloured hair, her eyes had changed from a deep purple with flecks of pink to almost an ice blue colour, she still had her heart shaped face, but her body seemed to change as well. He couldn't be sure but he thought she had shrank an inch or two, her breasts seemed a little bigger than before, and her hips seemed to widen a little as well, all in all he thought she was probably the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, then the thought crossed his mind '_I wonder if that is what she really looks like_?' He pushed that thought out of his mind and laid down on the bed next to her and continued to stroke her hair, he wasn't exactly sure what it was that made him continue doing that, but he thought it might be comforting, as he knew it seemed to sooth him by doing it. All the anger he had not even ten minutes ago seemed to melt away in this simplest of actions, and it really amazed him that such a simple action could have such a profound effect on his mood.

He didn't know when he fell asleep that night, all he knew is that he had the best sleep he'd had since before Sirius had died and began to think what it was that caused this. He had a strange tingling sensation in his left arm, he went to move it, to get the blood flowing again, but found that for some unknown reason he couldn't, he also took notice that there seemed to be something soft yet firm in his right hand and a strange yet comforting warmth all along the front of his body. As the memories from last night came rushing back, he remembered that he had laid Tonks on his bed before he had fallen asleep, instantly his eyes shot open, and there in front of him was a mess of auburn hair draped over the pillow next too him gently snoring. It took him a minute or two to figure out what exactly it was that was in his right hand, all at once it hit him that he now had her breast cupped in him hand, he made to slowly extract his hand from it's current position hoping not to wake her in the process, and perhaps save himself the slap he figured he was going to get. As he was moving his hand downwards to a more 'safe' position in his mind, she gave a little whimper and proceeded to wiggle her but up against his crotch, causing his already strained member to react on its own accord, which caused his eyes to roll into the back of his head and a low moan to escape his lips.

Tonks for her part wasn't sure what was going on, the last thing she remembered was hearing Harry scream last night and coming to see if she could help, only to find that ape of a man beating him. She knew she was foolish to lunge at the man as he had a good 100 kilos on her but in the spur of the moment she forgot that she was a fully trained witch and could use magic, all she really knew at that moment was that she wanted to rip his face off for hurting her Harry, '_my Harry? Where the hell did that come from? Sure he is cute and incredibly sweet, not too mention caring and loyal, but he couldn't be interesting in me, I am too old for him, and I am sure he has hundreds if not thousands of girls lining up to be with him…_' she was broken out of her musings by a strong hand slowly moving across her breast, which caused her to whimper a little and wiggle her but into the body laying behind her, causing it to give out a low moan. Suddenly it hit her, she hadn't had a date in close to six months, and it had been even longer since she had shared a bed with someone, '_so who is it that's behind me?_' she thought as her eyes shot open, all of the sudden her head started to hurt, she just as quickly shut her eyes and began to think again for a second, '_where am I and what the hell happened?_' as the memories flooded back to her she realized that when she jumped at Dursley, he had thrown her at the wall, '_that would explain the headache,_' she thought. Then she remembered waking up for a moment to see Harry and his uncle arguing, she also remembered casting a stunner at the fat pig, but that's it. She opened her eyes, slowly this time, and took a look around the room, and realized that she was still in Harry's room… in Harry's bed, all she knew at this point was she felt safer than she ever had and she had the best sleep that she had gotten since Sirius had died. She knew right now that she never wanted this to end, but if there was a chance to get out before he, or anyone else saw them like this then she would have to take it, no matter how much she hated to do it.

Tonks gradually began to move away but suddenly froze when Harry spoke to her, 'um… Tonks…' She slowly turned over so she was facing him, so now their noses where only inches apart, she looked into his deep emerald green eyes, and instantly lost any and all will to try and get out of the room, all she wanted to do was stay where she was forever.

When Tonks rolled over Harry took a look into her ice blue eyes and was lost, he couldn't think of anything else other than how much he wanted to stay where he was at the moment, right now he was sure he didn't care if Voldemort himself was storming the house he wasn't going to move. Harry wasn't sure what it was that possessed to kiss her, all he knew was that that was something he had to do, no matter what happened after, he just knew he had to. The kiss was a sweet soft supple kiss at first, after the initial shock had worn off it began to deepen, and quickly became and very heated and passionate kiss, slowly his hands began to move of their own accord and chose to explore her back and butt gently pulling her closer to him, while she was running hers through his hair and down his back. When they finally came up for air a couple minutes later the first words out both of their mouths where 'wow!' which caused both to start to giggle.

The silence from the kiss only last a few seconds before Tonks spoke with a devilish grin on her face, 'what was that for? Not that I am complaining mind you.'

'Well to be honest, I am not sure, I just looked into your eyes and I lost myself, and it just seemed like the right thing to do.' Harry said with a small sheepish grin while the blush slowly crept to his face. 'Your not mad are you?' The smile left his face as he asked this.

Tonks noticed the smile waver on his face and the instant look of fear come into his eyes as he asked her if she was mad at him, she wanted to tell him that she had wanted to do that since the first time she met him, that all she wanted to do every time she looked into his eyes was snog him senseless, but for some reason she couldn't bring herself to admit that to him…yet anyway, she took and cupped his face with her hands and giggled as she spoke, 'No I am not mad, but I will be if we don't do that again.' She slowly began to kiss him again, this time trying to pour all her feelings that she had kept bottled up into it, hoping against hope that he understood that she meant it. The kiss lasted for a good ten minutes before they finally broke a part for some much needed air, both grinning like idiots.

They laid there for a few minutes just enjoying holding one another, Harry broke the silence this time, 'Tonks, can I ask you something?'

'Sure you can ask me anything, what would you like to know?' she responded.

'Well…' Harry hesitated unsure of how to ask this, 'um, is that what you really look like?' his voice quivering as he spoke, while a look of worry flashed across his face.

Her eyes shot wide open and it would have almost looked comical, if Harry hadn't been so worried about how she would take the question. She jumped from the bed and ran to the mirror that was on top of his dresser to see what he was talking about, when she looked in the mirror she blanched and dropped to the ground and proceeded to cry. As soon as Harry saw her drop to the ground he jumped out of the bed and raced over to her just as she started to cry, 'What… what's wrong?' he asked in a worried voice.

'You think I am ugly don't you?' she managed to get out between sobs.

It was Harry's turn to grow pale and drop to the ground in front of her, he stared at her for a moment in disbelief, before reaching over and gently lifting her chin, 'Tonks look at me please, how could you ask me that? Of course I don't think your ugly, why would you think that?' he asked in a soft caring voice.

'Because… because…' she tried to start but couldn't seem to get the words out before she started crying again, she finally managed to compose herself enough to answer a minute or so later, 'every guy I have went out with since I started at Hogwarts, has always wanted me to be their 'dream girl', they never wanted me, they always wanted me to be someone else,' she started crying again as soon as she was done speaking.

Harry looked down at the floor for a moment and couldn't help but think to himself 'Bloody stupid gits, if they can't see how completely and utterly beautiful she is they must be complete nutters,' what he didn't realize was he had said it out loud until he looked back up at her and saw she was staring intently at him with a piercing gaze, he was starting to become unnerved under her stare and was about to ask her why she was doing that when she pounced on him, drawing him into a hug to rival a Weasley hug and kissing him fiercely.

When they broke for air she asked him, 'do you mean it? Do you think I'm beautiful?' for a second a flash of worry crossed her face but in a second it was gone.

It was then he realized he didn't just think that, he actually said it out loud, he began to blush and said, 'you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I mean that, if the other guys couldn't see that then they are fucking stupid or crazy or both, because any guy would be lucky to have a woman as beautiful as you.'

It was Tonks's turn to blush now, she pulled back and gave him a playful punch in the arm, 'your not half bad yourself you know,' she said with a sly grin on her face.

As they were getting up off the floor Tonks, for the first time, noticed the state of the bedroom, 'what the bloody hell happened here, it looks like a bomb went off?'

Harry led her over to the bed and began to retell what happened the night before, by the end of it she looked white as a ghost and had her hands covering her mouth, as soon as he finished speaking she jumped off the bed, her features and body changing to look more feral as she grabbed her wand, 'where are they? I'll kill them, they were told to treat you right and… I'll fucking kill that fat pig! I'll gut him six ways to Sunday for doing that to you' she spat.

'No you wont, for the time being I have to live here, if you hurt them it will only make it that much harder to deal with, please, for me, let this go for now, please,' he almost begged.

'But… Harry… He shouldn't do that to you, he…'

Harry silenced her with a kiss and then pulled her back down to the bed before he started talking again, 'I know, they are nothing but a bunch of assholes and someday when I get my chance I will leave, on that day they will know some of what I have had to endure over the past 14 years, but please promise me that you wont tell anyone else about this, and that you wont do anything about this until then.'

'I… I… I don't like it Harry,' she hung her head dejectedly, 'but if that's what you want then I guess I will have to live by it… for now,' she finished with an evil glint in her eyes.

'Now Nymphadora, what would I do, if you went away to Azkaban?' he smiled at her knowing that she hated her first name, he was shocked though when she didn't cuff him one for saying it, instead she looked down and blushed again. 'What's up?' he asked.

'Well you know I hate my first name… but for some reason when you say it… I kind of like it… though if you call me that in front of anyone I will be forced to hurt you,' she finished in a mock stern voice that sounded similar McGonagall.

'Ok if your going to keep coming around here you have to promise not to do that anymore,' he said with a smile.

'Oh, you think just because you kiss pretty good and managed to cop a feel or two, that I am going to keep coming around here, do yah?' Tonks said in the same mock stern voice.

'I… we… um… I… err… assumed… that…. um…' Harry blanched for a moment and tried to speak but all he could mange was to stutter, before Tonks took pity on him and began to laugh.

'Harry, of course I will be coming around here again, you didn't think you could just snog me senseless and throw me to the curb did you, nope now that I have got you I am not letting go, so humph.' She finished with a proud smile on her face and crossed her arms, before breaking off into another fit of giggles at the look on his face.

She was still laughing when he pounced on her and started tickling her; he continued to tickle her until finally she gave up and promised to not use her 'McGonagall' voice again. They sat and talked for better part of an hour, just about the little things in life, steering clear of anything big, like Sirius' death or the prophecy, they were just getting to know one another sharing stories about school and what they liked and disliked, what surprised them was that they both really like quidditch, and that they both had a knack for DADA. Finally Tonks' stomach gave a growl to let her know that she was hungry, she blushed at it, while Harry gave a small chuckle asking, 'why don't you take a shower and I'll go grab us some breakfast then I can grab one after.'

Tonks shot him a mock hurt look and asked 'what do I smell or something?' then switched to a playful grin before asking, 'we could always take one together you know.'

Harry had enough decency to blush at this before he answered, 'we could but I think I had better feed you before you wake the neighbours,' He said before kissing her and jumping out of her reach.

She looked at him for a moment then began to bounce around like a little kid, 'feed me, feed me,' she chanted.

'Only if your good, my dear,' she started to pout until he leaned in and whispered with a cheeky grin, 'though it would be more fun if you were bad,' before kissing her neck, which ended up with him getting a playful slap on the shoulder and a kiss on the cheek.

As Tonks pulled away she had a thoughtful look on her face which lead Harry to ask, 'what's up?'

Tonks looked hesitant for a moment then voice a question that had bugged her since she awoke, but that she had forgot about when Harry told her that he thought she was beautiful, 'Harry, um… what happened to your bruises? I mean I saw… well you know, and you should be covered in them,' Tonks looked at the sheets afraid she had ruined their happy moment by bringing up the events of last night.

It was Harry's turn to look thoughtful for a moment before, 'I don't know, I guess I have always been a fast healer, I just never gave it much thought, I always kind of assumed that it was something to do with me being a wizard and all, I am sure you can do it too… right?'

'Well yes I can do it, but that's because of what I am, it's not something that the normal witch or wizard can do without a potion to speed up the process… has anything else happened like this before?'

'Well the last time I had a hair cut, they really butchered it, left me almost bald really, and when I went to sleep I wished it would grow back, and when I woke up it had… aunt Petunia wasn't happy about it either, I got a beating for that too,' he added in a small voice.

'How long ago was that? Was that the only time?'

'Well since that was my only hair cut yeah, I think it was 7 years ago, why what does this mean?'

Tonks was now bouncing up and down on the bed clapping, all the while grinning and chanting, 'I've got a partner, I've got a partner.'

Harry couldn't help be happy even if he wasn't sure what she was talking about, just before he was going to ask her about it, he noticed that with each bounce she was moving closer and closer to the edge of the bed, on the last bounce she slipped off and started to fall to the ground, if it wasn't for Harry's quick seeker reflexes she would have crashed onto the floor. As he pulled back onto the bed she was blushing like mad, he took this opportunity to ask her what she was going on about, 'ok so what does that mean? You've got a partner?'

As soon as he said that he face lit up like a child who just found out that Christmas has come early, 'Harry, do you have any idea what this could mean?'

'Um, no Nymphadora, really I don't,' he said laughing at her joyfulness.

'Well Harry,' she took a steadying breath as if she was going to tell him some big secret, 'You could be…'

'A what, Nymph?'

'A Metamorphmagus," she screamed and launched herself at him, gathering him into another Weasley style hug.

'What! You're kidding me, really?'

'Well we would still have to run a couple tests to make sure, but if what you tell me is right then, yeah most likely you are,' she kissed him hard and passionately, 'then I could train you and oh we could have so much fun,' she said starting to bounce around again, this time when she went to fall she pulled Harry down with her, they landed with a none to graceful 'thud' on the wood floor.

"You would do that for me?' Harry said in shock, while still lying beside her on the floor.

'Of course, who else are you going to learn from? I am the only one in the UK… well at least for now anyway, this is great I get my dream guy and a partner all in one day, YAHOO!' she yelled throwing her arms over her head.

'Your dream guy eh? Is that so, interesting bit of information there Nymph,' Harry teased.

Tonks turned three shades of red when she realized what she just said, then to have Harry tease her about only served to deepen the blush further. Harry saw the level of blush on her face and began to chuckle which earned him a small glare, 'you're my dream girl so don't feel to bad,' and kissed her on the cheek.

She threw her arms around him and snogged him senseless for a good 15 minutes, before realizing that their hands were starting to work their way under each others clothing. They were brought out of their snog fest by a tapping on the bedroom window, Harry untangled himself enough to see that two tawny owls were sitting on his windowsill, He got off the floor and padded over to the window to let the owls in, as soon as he opened the window one owl stuck it's leg out for him to relieve it of its burden while the other swooped down to Tonks for her to do the same, once both owls had finished their delivery they took off without waiting for reply.

Harry looked at his letter and noticed that it carried an official seal of Gringotts turning it over; he opened it and began to read.

_**Letter**_

_Dear Mr. Potter;_

_We at Gringotts would like to send you our deepest condolences in regards to the death of one Sirius Orion Black. We are writing to inform you that the will reading for the for mentioned Sirius Black, will take place on July 31st at precisely 1 Pm, I ask that you arrive an hour ahead, because there is some other details which we must discuss before the official reading is to take place, this letter will is a portkey which will activate at precisely 11:55 Am and will deliver you directly to my offices here within Gringotts._

_Should you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to owl me and I will see what we can do._

_Ragnok_

_Chief Goblin, Gringotts_

_London, England._

This was the last thing Harry wanted to think about right now, he finally got the girl who he had been dreaming of for the past year, and now Gringotts has to send him a letter, reminding him of Sirius' death. Then the thought hit him hard, the thought that he had forgotten about Sirius, for however brief a moment, he had forgot, forgot all the pain, forgot all the blame, he had been so happy to have his new relationship that Sirius hadn't entered his mind since he had woken up. Harry cursed himself for being so stupid, for forgetting about Sirius and vowed that it wouldn't happen again, that no matter if he survived the war or not he would make those responsible pay for Sirius' death, even at the cost of his own life.

Tonks was sitting on the floor still, reading her letter from Gringotts, telling her that she had to be at the bank for 1 Pm on July 31st, when she looked up to see how Harry was handling the news, she saw the change of emotion sweeping over his face. First there was shock, then grief, then finally an awe inspiring, if not a little intimidating, steely glint of determination, 'Harry…. are… are you ok?' She asked as she stood and moved over to him, while pulling him into a tight hug.

'I'm… I'm… really not sure anymore,' Harry said with a sigh, 'I mean I was great till this dam letter arrived, but now…'

'Now you thinking that you're not respecting Sirius' memory by enjoying yourself?'

'Yeah,' he whispered while turning to look at the ground.

'Harry look at me,' she demanded gently, while lifting his chin to face her, 'you know Sirius wouldn't want you to be moping around morning him, he would want you out enjoying life and raising a little hell along the way.' Seeing he was about to object to what she was telling him she placed a finger softly on his lips to silence him so she could continue, 'now I am not telling you that you should forget about him, because you never will, what I am telling you is to remember him but don't forget to live while you're at it.'

'How can I move on and enjoy life when I am responsible for him being dead?" Harry asked slightly annoyed, 'if it wasn't for me he would still be here, if I had just put aside my loathing for Snape and practiced my Occlumency, I might not have gotten that bloody vision and he would still be here,' Harry looked back at the floor, gave a cleansing sigh and then continued, 'I know I am not the only person to blame for his death, hell I might even have the least blame out of all those at fault, but that still doesn't remove the fact that I still played a part in him dying, no matter how much I wish it wasn't true.'

'_Why is it that he should have so much burden, he is only 15, when I was 15 the biggest thing I had to worry about was what colour my hair was going to be the next day, while he has to worry about some psychopath stalking him and trying to kill him, it's just not fair,_' Tonks thought. Tonks slowly directed them over to the bed where they could sit, since she figured this was going to be a long conversation by the time they were finished, 'Harry, you can't let this get you down, you need to find a way to channel some of this frustration you have into something healthy, I have seen aurors who let guilt get the better of them, and you know what happens to them,' seeing Harry shake his head no she continued, 'They die, those that can find an outlet are the ones who survive, and I want you to be one of the ones who survive.'

'But what am I supposed to use as my outlet? I am stuck here for another four weeks at least?"

'Well I could help you train, not magically of course, but physically. We could go for runs in the morning and we could even look at setting up some type of training schedule, maybe even including some weight lifting if we get a chance, and I will talk to Dumbledore at the…'

'No fucking way, we can do everything else, but I don't want the old bastard knowing about you helping me,' Harry spat with such venom on his voice that Tonks was taken aback for a moment, she had never heard of anyone speak of the headmaster that way, she wasn't sure what it was about it that upset Harry so much, but she needed to find out before they could continue.

'Harry what's wrong with involving Dumbledore? Does it have something to do with that Prophecy he told us about?' she asked hesitantly, fearing another famous Potter blow up, she had never been on the receiving end before, but from what she heard last year while he was staying at Grimmauld place, she knew she didn't want to be either.

'He… He… told you about the prophecy? When? How much of it did he tell you?' Harry anger quickly deflated on hearing that others knew about the Prophecy, but was starting to rise again when he realized that he might have been the last one to know about it, it hurt even more considering it was about him. '_Just one more thing the old man has kept hidden from me,_' Harry thought.

'He only told four of us, your guards for the summer, and he only told us it was about you and _him_, as for when he told us, that was last night before I started my shift here, why what is it about?'

Harry considered for a minute or two, if he should tell Tonks the prophecy or not, on one hand she would be in more danger as soon as she knew its contents, on the other hand she would be in just as much danger by just dating him. Seeing the emotional battle that was going on across his face Tonks decided to speak, 'Harry, if you don't want to tell me, I wont be mad, I sure you have every reason not to want to talk about it.'

'No… No you need to know it before we can go any further,' his voice was edged with sorrow at the chance he could loose the one good thing left in his life after only having it for a short time, though he knew it was only fair to let her make her own decision about it.

'_The one with power to vanquish the dark lord approaches._

_Born to those who have thrice defied him_

_Born as the seventh months dies_

_And the dark lord shall mark him as his equal_

_But he shall have power the dark lord knows not_

_And either must die at the hand of the other_

_For neither can live while the other survives the one with the power to vanquish the _

_Dark lord will be born as the seventh month dies'_

They sat in silence for a while allowing each to come to terms with what had just been said, it was Harry who broke the calm as he began to speak again, 'basically it come down to the fact that I am the only one who can defeat _him, _that in the end it will come down to either him or me, that either I have to kill or be killed,' Harry's voice was barely a whisper when he finished and he had yet to take his eyes off the floor in front of him. 'Dumbledore, he told me less than an hour after Sirius fell through the veil, he had known for 17 years, but he didn't think I was old enough to handle it, if he would have just told me last year I would have worked harder on the Occlumency, and then maybe I would have known that it wasn't a real vision…' Harry's voice finally trailed off and for a while they sat in silence, he was startled when he felt her hand take his and give it a squeeze, so much so that he actually jumped a bit before turning to look at her.

'He told you then?' Tonks said with almost as much hatred as Harry had voiced a few minutes before, 'what the hell was he thinking? Waiting until then to tell you, and then sticking you with Snape to learn Occlumency, he should have known better than that.' They were silent again for a few moments while the both assimilated this new information, Tonks again was the one who broke the silence, 'Harry this only proves that you need this training more than ever, I wont see you die, not if I can do anything to stop it, I am still going to go to Dumbledore,' she saw he was going to interrupt again, but quieted him by taking her other hand and running it softly through his hair and gently cupping his face while rubbing her thumb on his cheek, 'I need to speak to Dumbledore because one I will need a break from missions in order to help you, and I would like to see if he can remove the age restriction for you at the ministry, if so then we can also work on your magical training,' she finished.

'Tonks, why are you doing this for me?'

'Because I care for you and I don't want to see you hurt, and if training you will ensure that then so be it, I am willing to do it,' Tonks answered while staring into his eyes. 'Besides what's the point of surviving this war, if I don't have my dream guy beside me to share it with,' she started to giggle before leaning into him and kissing him soundly for a few minutes.

When they finally came up for air Harry realized he still had the letter from Gringotts clutched tightly in his hand, after looking at it again for a moment he looked up at Tonks and asked, 'Tonks will you come with me to the meeting before the will reading? You know more about the wizarding world than I do and it would be nice to just have you there with me.'

'Sure I'll come with you, what time is your meeting set for?'

'Well according to this letter, it will become a portkey at 11:55 Am on the 31st, and it is supposed to take us right to a Mr. Ragnok's office at that time,' Harry said as he passed Tonks the letter for her to read.

As Tonks was reading over the letter Harry got up from the bed and headed down stairs to grab some food for Tonks and himself, what he saw when he entered the kitchen surprised him to say the least, on the counter was a note from the Dursley's saying that they had left for the day that there was food for him in the fridge, what really surprised Harry was the amount of food the Dursley's had left for him in the fridge, there was enough there to make a fair meal, nothing compared to what he would have gotten at Hogwarts, but still way more than he was used to seeing with his name on it, in their home. Harry quickly set to work making Tonks and himself some breakfast, he decided on eggs and bacon with a side of grapefruit, and two glasses of orange juice to wash it down.

Tonks had read over the letter three times before she noticed Harry had left and gone downstairs, she was amazed that Harry had gotten a letter like this, even her letter was just the basic letter telling her that she was to attend the will reading, while Harry's was more personal in nature, what really made her think about it was not really what the letter said but who it was from, Ragnok, Ragnok wasn't just the goblin in charge at Gringotts, not he was also the leader of the goblin nation, he was the most powerful goblin in the world, and here he was writing to a teenager. she had never thought of Harry as being anything more than just that, Harry, but now she had to wonder if maybe the goblins saw him as something else entirely, she was sure that Harry was wealthy, hell Dumbledore had said as much at one of the first meeting she had ever attended, but even wealthy people never got a letter like the one Harry just got, let alone from the lead goblin. As she was mulling over this new information, she decided that it was time to go and have a shower before breakfast was ready, so she padded softly across the hardwood floor and into the bathroom across the hall.

Tonks didn't take long in the shower, training had a lot to do with that, while in training you were expected to be able to be up showered, dress and out the door in under ten minutes from the time your wake up call came, it was a habit that she never got over since she finished her training only a year ago. Sure she liked to take a longer shower after a long day or if she was sharing the stall with someone, but those times were few and far between anymore, '_though maybe not for much longer,_' she thought as a mischievous grin found its way to her lips, '_sure Harry and I haven't been even going out for a full day yet but that doesn't mean a girl can't dream does it?_' she asked herself before exiting the shower and grabbing a towel to dry herself off, and then wrapping it around herself she grabbed her clothes and headed for the bedroom so she could cast the cleaning spells on her clothes and get changed, she wouldn't have done this normally, but seeing as she had no clean clothes here and she wasn't aware that the Dursley's were out for the day, she didn't want to tie up the bathroom any longer than she needed to.

As soon as Harry heard the water shut off he began dishing out the food he had prepared on to the plates he had ready, then leaving the pans in the sink, he headed up stairs to take Tonks her breakfast, if he had been a few seconds quicker he would have seen her padding across the hall in only a towel and would have waited until he was sure she was dressed, but since he didn't see her, he just assumed that she was dressed and continued up the stairs, the sight that met him, once he entered the room almost caused him to drop the plates, there standing at the foot of his bed dressed only in a towel, while swishing her hips ever so slightly as she cast the cleaning charm on her clothes, was Tonks, for a second he thought his heart had stopped, his breath caught in his throat and he was riveted to the floor unable to move or speak, hell at this point he would have sworn thinking was impossible. It wasn't until she had finished cleaning her clothes, and was starting to untie the towel that he found his voice, 'breakfast is served,' he croaked out.

Tonks gave a start and spun around to see Harry standing there with two plates of food, one in each hand, and staring at her like he was a lion, and she was some hapless gazelle, the look in his eyes was that of pure lust and it took all of her will power not to pounce on him at the moment. Sure she wasn't going to rush things, but that didn't mean she couldn't tease him a little more, 'do you like what you see?' She asked in a low sultry voice, as she padded across the room towards him, her hips slowly swaying from side to side as she moved.

All Harry could do to respond, is nod numbly, the sight of a nearly naked Tonks, not only alone in the room, but alone in the house with him, having taken away not only his voice again but was enough to make him loose his will to move out of the room, what made matters worse was when she started to move closer to him, causing his eyes to gradually wander over her, taking in all he could see, and imagining anything he couldn't, he could feel his heart racing, his palms were getting sweaty, and all he knew was if he didn't get out of that room right away he wasn't sure if he could hold onto whatever self control he was still managing.

Tonks closed the gap between them in a few steps, when she finally was down to the final few feet, she reached out and started tracing his jaw line with one finger, lightly drawing it across his jaw and down his neck and then across his shirt covered chest, drawing lazy circles when she reached his chest, sending a series of involuntary shivers through Harry, she brought herself still closer, laying her hand flat on his chest, before kissing him gently and taking the two plates out of his hands, 'now be a dear and leave so I can get changed, then we can enjoy this wonderful breakfast that you have prepared,' she whispered with a small smile on her face, before retreating farther into the room to set the plates down on the small dresser next to the bed.

As Harry watched her move off towards the other side of the room, he was forced to give himself a mental slap and bring himself back to reality, he quickly realized that she was in fact teasing him and decided, no matter how awkward he might feel about it, that he had to tease her back. He slowly walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tight to his body, then after lowering his head down to just beside her ear, he whispered, 'now that wasn't very nice, now was it, getting me all worked up with no place to go,' his warm breath cascading across the nape of her neck and tickling her ear lobe, causing a series of shivers to flow through Tonks' body, he leaned in even closer and kissed her neck, causing her to tilt her head to allow him better access, stopping himself before he got to carried away in these new sensations, he turned around and strolled out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him, leaving her standing there, head tilted, and with a blush and a dreamy smile, slowly creeping to her face.

Tonks stood there for a few moments after she heard the door close, just allowing the sensations to flood her senses, before whispering to herself, 'he is good, very good, this could turn out to be fun, and very rewarding,' she smiled to herself as she started to get dressed. She was still smiling when she went to open the bedroom door to let Harry back in, he was leaning against the wall directly across from his bedroom door, he had a wistful look in his eyes and a contented smile on his lips, she knew he was thinking about what had just happened in the bedroom a few minutes before and was pleased to see that she had that much of an effect on him, she walked up to him and kissed him squarely on the lips, which broke him out of his thoughts, 'we should eat soon or it will be too cold,' she said, while flashing him a smile, as she grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the room. Tonks pushed Harry down onto the bed then went to grab their food from its current resting place on the dresser. They ate in companionable silence, when the meal was finished Harry took the plates and walked back down stairs, Tonks took a second to check and see that she hadn't overlooked anything in the room, before fallowing him into the kitchen.

No sooner had they entered the kitchen when the clock on the mantle of the fireplace began to chime, Tonks took a second to see what time of day it was, and almost fell over when she saw it was now 11 Am, 'Shit!' she cursed, 'please tell me that's not the proper time.'

'Yeah, it the correct time, why?' Harry was more than a little confused as to what the big deal about it being 11 am was, but he figured it must be something important for her to react in such a way.

'Shit, Shit, SHIT!' She cursed again, 'I'm late, really late, shit, sorry love but I have to run, I am an hour late for my meeting with the order, shit, there is going to be hell to pay if I don't show up,' Tonks ran over to Harry and kissed him hard, 'I'll stop by later,' she promised before she apperated away.

**A/N: Well there is the first chapter, I ask that you review regardless if you like it or hate it, mainly so I can improve my writing skill. Though if there is something you hate give me a reason why you hate it please, as it will make it easier should I ever decide to change it or write another fic. **

**Also I know people are going to complain about the fact that Tonks and Harry seem to be moving too fast to be real. But think of it like this their world has just been shaken up by Sirius' death. So they have had to sit back and reevaluate what is important to them, as it is in stressful times we tend to latch onto people who are like minded or share a similar pain. So while I am not saying that their romance is something that is a passing thing (because it is the pairing for the story). I am saying that it is off of this that I based the fact that they were willing/able to let go of those things that would otherwise hold them back normally (i.e. fear over age… which really isn't that big of a difference to begin with, fear of rejection, etc.). **

**Also to those out there that are going to say that the characters are too out of character, well frankly this is my take on them and how they would handle the situations I am placing them in so with that in mind they aren't really acting all that out of character. I know that is a cop out, and that some of the diehards are still going to complain but really it comes down to one thing. Does it interfere with your enjoyment of the fic? if so then I would suggest you stop reading and move onto something else, if not then you might just enjoy it… saying I don't screw it up too royally that is.**

**Also I am looking for a Beta to help with the fic, since as you can likely guess by now my grammar isn't the best. Thanks for you time and I truly hope you enjoyed it thus far.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own nothing other than my original ideas; almost all characters/ places are the property of J.K. Rowling, baring any that I create during the completion of this story. **

_**Harry Potter and the Trials of Myrddin**_

**A/N: After talking to one of the people who chose to make a review I have been made aware that I have inadvertently broached on someone else's idea, while not directly copying what they had written it is still close enough to draw the conclusion that I based the scene in question off of their work. I would just like to take the time to say that it was never my intention to do this, I will admit freely that I knew I was using someone else's ideas as a starting point for mine, I just never suspected that what I turned out was that close to the original that a comparison would be drawn. I am sorry for this, truly, I am, I realize how much time and effort the other writers put into their work and for someone to either directly or indirectly copy their work it is just not right. Now I have talked to the author of the original scene and while they have not told me to re-write the scene they have asked 'that I use my own ideas' and I hope that from this point on that will be the case. So I ask, to everyone reading this story, please if you see something that seems to be copied from someone else's work, let me know. I have read a lot of fan fiction since I first found it and as such there could be some bleeding of ideas, and while this is not an excuse nor a justification for re-working someone else's ideas, it does happen from time to time. So I ask again should you recognize anything I have written please bring it too my attention, since this is something I wish to avoid in the future. **

**Thank you for you time and reading of my story. **

**Looneylupinsrevenge.**

**Chapter 2: Taking sides;**

'Shit, Shit, SHIT!' She cursed again, 'I'm late, really late, shit, sorry love but I have to run, I am an hour late for my meeting with the order, shit, there is going to be hell to pay if I don't show up,' Tonks ran over to Harry and kissed him hard, 'I'll stop by later,' she promised before she apparated away.

**_--- Scene Break - June 29th - #12 Grimmauld Place ---_**

The meeting was already underway when Tonks apparated into the hallway outside the kitchen at number 12 Grimmauld place, as she entered the kitchen she quickly took notice that most of the order was present at this meeting, while this wasn't out of the ordinary, it usually only took place when something big had happened. She quickly moved her way through the kitchen and took up a place next to Bill Weasley, who was so wrapped up in the meeting that he failed to notice her enter the kitchen, 'what's going on Bill?' Tonks asked.

'BLOODY HELL TONKS' Bill yelped, 'where the hell have you been?'

'I've been talking to Harry, why?' She answered sheepishly.

'For the love of Merlin, Tonks, we have been going spare with worry over you two, when you didn't show up to file your report on time, we thought something had happened to you two, Dumbledore sent a couple of us over to Harry's and when we couldn't find you, we alerted the rest of the order, we were about to send out a search party,' Bill said exasperatedly, neither of them noticed that all the talking in the room had ceased until Dumbledore spoke up.

'Wait what do you mean you were talking to Harry,' Dumbledore questioned.

'She means she ignored your direct orders not to let Potter know she was there,' Snape said in his patented sneered.

'Sod off Snivellus, you greasy git! I went to talk to Harry because he is dealing with the death of someone he considered family, tough as this might be for you to understand, he actually cares about people other than himself,' she retorted.

'We all have seen how you fawn over the boy when he is here, no doubt consoling him wasn't the only thing on your mind, you little wench,' Snape jumped up from his chair, causing it to go crashing to the ground behind him. 'Albus I demand that she be thrown out of the order!'

'On what charges you pompous twit!' Tonks drawled back.

'Let's see if I can manage to list all your infraction in one lifetime. First disobeying a direct order,' He said while counting off each infraction on his fingers, while a smug look seemed to settle on his face. 'Two, disrupting order proceedings on numerous occasions, three seducing a minor. Four…'

'Why you slimy git!' she rebutted while being physically restrained by Bill Weasley, from hexing the man across the room.

'Severus, that's enough, please sit down and we can continue with the meeting,' Dumbledore said while placing a hand on Snape's shoulder and firmly pushing back to his now righted seat, 'now please Nymphadora, explain your actions, why did you reveal yourself to Harry?'

'Sir, with all due respect I feel that is not something that should be heard by the entire order, and definitely not without Harry's consent, he is finally starting to open up to someone about what he is feeling, and I for one, am not willing to betray that trust,' reasoned Tonks.

'While I commend you on holding his trust in such high regard, I must insist that you tell us, since it could be something important,'

'I am sorry sir; I can not and will not betray his trust, if I have learned anything in my time as an auror and with the order, it is that trust is a very valuable thing, and once lost it can be nearly impossible to regain,' argued Tonks.

'Very well,' Dumbledore said with a sigh, allowing his mind to reach out to hers he attempted to lightly scan her most recent memories for the information he desired. However, almost as soon as his mind touched hers, he could feel her ministry trained defenses snap into place and effectively block him from gaining any more information. He could have easily forced his way through her weak defenses but in doing so, he would have revealed his actions to the rest of the order, since such an undertaking would most certainly be painful for the person who the probe was directed at. Deciding quickly to try and force her hand he changed tactics, 'since you are so stead fast in your position, I am left with no choice but to remove you from his protective detail, because you are becoming to involved with the subject.' Dumbledore, being nearly 160 years of age, he prided himself in never being caught unaware, that is too say that he tried to anticipate other's actions, and generally he was met with great success. However, what happened next surprised the ancient wizard and most of those in the room.

'The _subject_ as you call him has a name sir, its Harry,' yelled Tonks, as she pushed herself off the wall she was leaning against, and started walking towards the headmaster, 'perhaps if you took the time to get to know him, you would stop thinking of him as a _subject_ and as a real person.'

Dumbledore stood in shock for a moment before he managed to compose himself enough to speak, 'Nymphadora, we only have his best interests at heart, surely you can understand that if something happened that would put him in danger, that we should be made aware of it, so that we might be able to protect him.' Effectively brushing off her concern over him referring to Harry as 'the subject'.

'So it was in his best interests last year to completely cut him off from all his friends, and not even for the real reason I might add. Am I to assume it was in his best interests to lie to him about why he had to study occlumency with Snape instead of you? And of course lest we forget, it had to be in his best interests to leave him with people who not only don't know magic, but who detest it and him for being magical. Honestly it is simply amazing that everything that's been done in his _best interests_ that he is still alive at all.' It wasn't Tonks who was on the tirade, and that shocked her because that was almost exactly what she was going to say, no it was Remus Lupin, the final Marauder, who was jumping on the band wagon in support of what Tonks was doing.

It was Moody who spoke next, breaking the silence that followed in the wake of Remus' lecture, 'Albus, I say we let her stay and help the boy, who knows maybe it will be good for them both to have someone to talk to, besides if she is willing to show this much devotion after only talking to him for one day, just imagine what would happen if someone attacked the house, I can't think of anyone better to protect him, than a friend he trusts.'

'Sir that actually brings up a point that I would like to mention,' Tonks interjected, not giving Dumbledore time enough to counter anyone's arguments, 'Harry has asked me to help train him, now I know right now he isn't allowed to do magic, but what I was wondering was if you could see about getting that lifted, that way should anything go wrong at least he will know how to defend himself properly,' Tonks figured now was probably the best time to ask this, since she had at least a few people who were on her side.

Dumbledore for his part, was trying to look pensive, he didn't want to come out and reject this idea, without at least appearing to give it some thought, because he feared that the rest of the order might join in with the three who were already standing against him, He couldn't take the risk of loosing control of the order just yet, he still had plans for them. 'Fudge might be incompetent at best, but he tends to hold grudges for quite sometime, and now that he has admitted that he was wrong about Voldemort's return, I fear at best this request will fall on deaf ears,' seeing that the others were about to object, he raised a hand to stay their comments before he continued, 'but I will see what I can do, though for the time being work on the physical training and I will get back to you about the magical.'

'Thank you, that's all we can ask sir,' Tonks said leaning back against the wall.

_**--- Scene Break ---**_

The meeting went on for another hour, nothing important was really said just a few updates to some old news. By the end of the meeting Tonks was nearly falling asleep, '_why do these blasted meetings have to be so bloody boring?_' she asked herself while stifling a yawn. As she made her way out of the kitchen, heading towards the apparition point, she was met by Remus Lupin.

'Tonks can we speak someplace in private?' he asked.

'Sure Remus, lead the way.' She followed him into the sitting room that was towards the back of the house. Once inside Remus motioned her to take a seat, while he continued to pace the floor. 'You know your going to leave a trench if you keep that up.' She joked.

'Huh? Oh sorry I guess I am just nervous.'

'What about? Anything I can help with?'

'Well I uh…' He let out a loud frustrated sigh before continuing, 'I was wondering why it was that Albus seemed so against letting Harry train, I mean he even went so far as to threaten to take you off the protective detail if you didn't back down and that's not like Albus, normally he will have his reasons but he never goes so far as to give someone an ultimatum like that. I am worried for him Tonks, really worried.'

'Who Albus? I think he is big enough to take care of himself Remus.' She was trying to lighten the tension in the air though it seemed to have little effect since the worrying werewolf was still pacing back and forth.

'Huh, no not Albus I mean Harry, I am worried about him.'

'I know Remus, I was joking. But I agree I am worried about him too, otherwise I wouldn't have brought up the need to train him. Question is what can we do about it?'

'Unfortunately not much I don't think and if we try to train him ourselves we will have both Albus and the ministry on us in no time.' Letting out a frustrated growl he continued. 'What is the old man playing at, he has already agreed to let the order train Ron and the others, so why not Harry? It just make no sense.'

'Remus look, I know we are both worried about Harry, and I plan on helping him regardless of what Albus says. It's the least we can do for him. But you did mention a rather large problem we have to try and over come, the tracking spells used on his wand, do you know of anyway we can bypass that? Because I highly doubt that my asking them to lift the ban is going yield any results.'

'Not that I can think of, but I will take a look later, I am sure that if there is a book on breaking the law in the wizarding world, it will be here in this house someplace. But It's going to take time and I will have to wait until everyone else is gone before I can look, I am sure Albus won't look kindly on us going behind his back like this.'

'Agreed, but what choice do we really have… what choice does Harry have? Look Remus, I should be going I still have to check in before my shift starts. Owl me if you find anything useful and I will look while I am at the ministry, maybe make a few innocent inquiries and see what I can find out.'

'If you see Harry again tonight let him know that I am worried about him please, and tell him that if he wants me to stop by at anytime to just drop me an Owl.'

'Will do Remus, talk to you later.'

'Bye Tonks.'

She made her way down the long hallway that was separating the main floor sitting room from the Kitchen, where the meetings were to normally take place, as she neared the kitchen door she felt the unmistakable magical vibrations coming from a silencing ward placed around the kitchen door. Falling back on her first year auror training she made short work of identifying the key runes holding the spell together and proceeded to take them apart, she wasn't sure what made her go to all this work just to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation, but it became clear a second later that it was a good thing she had.

'Albus, why are you doing this? He is just a boy, he shouldn't be stuck with those… those muggles,' The gruff voice of Alastor Moody said, 'he should be preparing for the fight that's to come, instead of just trying to survive the summer.'

'Alastor, I can't allow him to train, he could become dangerous, should he ever decide that he has had enough of his family, it could lead him to join Tom, and I can't risk that happening, no, he wont be training this summer. Let his friends train with the rest of the order and Harry will have to stay were his is until I feel it's time to bring him here,' Albus Dumbledore said in a cool voice. 'We need to be sure he isn't going to turn out like Tom before we offer him any type of training, and right now I can't be sure of it.'

'So what are you going to do then? Just send him off to the wolves so he can get slaughtered? He deserves better than that Albus, and you damn well know it!' Moody growled he took a couple deep breaths before he continued in a somewhat calmer tone. 'Albus, you and I have been friends for a great many years, almost 60 now, and in all that time I think I have only ever seen you make one mistake, underestimating Potter, he's a good lad and you know as well as I that he would rather die than turn dark, so what is the real motivation behind him staying at the muggles place all this time?'

'Because I feel he needs to be made ready to fight anything Tom may throw at him, and him being caudled by those around here isn't going to help matters. He needs to toughen up and he can't do that here, he needs the challenges of being there to do it,' Albus finished in an almost condescending manner.

'Albus, you can't be serious, you left him there all this time to toughen him up? Are you seeing the same boy I am, he doesn't need to be any tougher, hell not two weeks ago he tried to use an unforgivable, how much fucking tougher are you wanting the boy to become?' Moody raged.

'But it didn't work, did it? He needs to understand Tom if he is ever going to beat him, and he can't do that here where he will be treated like something special, no he needs to be somewhere they wont treat him like a hero, someplace where he isn't going to be treated extraordinary at all,' Dumbledore finished with a sigh.

'Albus, I have stood by you when others said I was crazy to do so, and every time I told myself they were wrong because you knew what was best, you knew what was the right thing to do at the time, but this… this I can't be a party too, I am sorry.' Moody shook his head in disgust before finishing his thoughts. 'Your treating the boy like his is nothing but a weapon, bloody hell Albus, what are you going to do is he does beat Voldemort, what then? Are you going to just chuck him in Azkaban and forget about him?' Moody argued, as he surveyed the face of his old friend he realized something, Albus hadn't denied it at all instead it almost looked to Moody like Albus was trying to pass it off. 'Holly shit you are aren't you, your planning on turning him over to those god forsaken dementors, to suck his out soul, once this is all over, why the fuck would you even think of doing something like this, he is just a boy!' He raged.

'I am not sure what will happen after the final battle, I am not even sure he will survive, but if he does then steps will have to be taken to ensure that he doesn't turn out like Tom in the long run. You know as well as I do Alastor that the last thing we will need is for your 'hero' to turn into another Dark Lord,' the face of Albus Dumbledore seemed to age almost 20 years in the time it took him to finish his sentence, It was a trick he had perfected when he was younger, it allowed others the see only what he wanted them to see while also hiding his true motivations. 'It is not something I am looking forward to, but it is something that may very well need to be done when the time comes, as for now I am going to take my leave and return to Hogwarts, good day Alastor,' The old wizard said as he stepped into the flames and was gone.

Moody stood there shell shocked for a few seconds after the figure of Albus Dumbledore disappeared into the flames, he seemed to be having almost as much trouble comprehending the information he had just been given as the woman who was standing in the hallway outside, 'Auror second class Tonks', Moody called, 'I know your there, and I know you heard everything, come here, we need to talk,' Moody said as he turned to face the kitchen door.

Tonks walked into the kitchen, she still had silent tears running down her face, she didn't want to believe anyone could be so heartless. But she had heard it herself, the great Albus Dumbledore, savior and guardian of the entire Wizarding world, was planning to turn the new savior over to the Dementors as soon as he was through with him. Moody motioned her to take a seat on one of the chairs near the table. He knew she had feelings for Harry, he just wasn't sure how far they went and if they would be stronger than her loyalty to Dumbledore, he hoped they were but he needed to find out before he put his newly formed plan into action.

'Tonks,' Moody started, he voice taking on a more caring tone than what many were familiar with, 'I need to know something, something important, and for that I need your word that everything you say is the truth, do you understand?' Tonks nodded her head and gave an oath of honesty. Once Moody had gotten the oath he shut the door to the kitchen and cast a couple very advanced silencing charms as well as an Imperturbable Charm to ensure that they had complete privacy. 'Tonks I need to know what your feelings are about Potter,' seeing her hesitant reaction he added, 'don't worry, I swear anything you say here today will not leave this room, I also swear everything I say today will be nothing but the truth.'

Tonks looked into the eyes of her one time mentor trying to understand what it was he was driving at, surely there was more important things here than what her feelings were for Harry, especially given the new information they had just been given, she stared at him for a few moments longer before answering. 'Why is it so important what my feelings are for him? I mean that should be the last thing we are talking about given what we both just found out, shouldn't it?'

'Tonks, I think I might have a way for Potter to not only win this war but to also survive what Albus is planning after, but I will need help and for that I need to know how you feel about the boy.'

'I… I… I really don't know, I know I care a great deal for him, I don't think I would go so far as to call it love… but I do care for him deeply. But what does this matter to what you have planned, please you have to tell me, if there is a way to save him and win this war, then I will do everything in my power to make it happen,' Tonks was close to tears again by the time she finished speaking.

Seeing her reaction to his question Moody couldn't help but allow a small smile to come to his face, 'What I need you to do is train him as much as possible, don't worry about the underage magic for the time being, I have a few friends at the ministry who might be able to help with that, but before we start really training him hard, we need his body in shape, and too do that I need you to make sure he is exercising. I will go talk to the Ministry and try to get you some time off to help him; you still have your sick days saved up correct?'

Tonks nodded, 'About two months or so.'

'Then if I can't secure you time off, you will have to use them, under ideal circumstances I would say it would take him a year of intense exercise to get his body in fighting form but since we don't have a year and we have to try to keep this from getting back to Albus, two months will have to do, at least by then the training I have planned for him wont kill him.'

'But how are we going to keep this from Dumbledore, I mean I am not the only person on the detail, and some of them are almost loyal to a fault?'

'Well since I work out the rotation for the protection detail,' Moody's smile grew a little as he said these words, 'that should be the easy part, Albus is so convinced that he knows everything that as long as we make sure that there is no one on the detail that is blindly loyal to him we should be fine. That means we won't be able to use many of the Weasley's as both Arthur and Molly would follow Albus to hell and back if he asked them too. But As I said I have a few friends at the Ministry and while I am calling in old favours I need to know someone is making sure the boy is getting the physical training he needs.

I don't like the game Albus is playing, it could very likely cost the boy his life, and I for one, am not going to stand around and just watch it happen. Also I need you to tell Potter what has been going on around here so that he isn't blind sided by Albus, when and if he ever decides to tell him that his friends have lied to him. I wouldn't put it past him to try and break Potters spirit in order to gain some measure of control, lord knows he was trying to with Sirius. For now we just have to make sure the boy is ready to handle it when the time comes. Anyway the current cover story for the Weasley kids is that Arthur and Molly are taking them on a trip to see Charlie over in Romania for the better part of the summer, and for Granger to be away with her parents as well. In reality they will be staying here during the summer and receiving special training from a select group of Order members, Albus wont tell me who, but seeing as he is going to want them at least fairly well trained I am guessing that he will be using, or at least trying to use, Kingsley, Lupin, Snape, and Minnie, since they are all at least fair fighters. Likely he will also try to use the youngest male Weasley's jealousy of Potter to his advantage, Also you may want to tell Potter that Weasley and Granger have been inactive Order members since the end of their fourth year.'

'They've WHAT???' Tonks yelled, as she tried to come to terms with the seemingly earth shattering news Moody had just bestowed on her, 'But how, why? Molly always said she never wanted them to be involved in the order, saying they were too young to be involved.'

'Missy weren't you listening, I said Molly and Arthur would follow Albus to hell and back without thinking twice about it, and that would include inducting her youngest into the order if Albus asked her too. In fact, outside of myself and now you only two others know about it, Snape and Minnie, Minnie had her objections at the time, stating that she didn't want something like that happening in her house. Of course Albus overruled her saying something about it 'being for the greater good to know what was going on in the boy's head'. But now that I think about it I wonder if he ever really cared about the boy,' Moody said with a small sigh. Getting up from his chair Moody looked at the shocked witch sitting in front of him before speaking again, 'I need to head off to the Ministry if I hope to do what needs to be done, before Albus can put any roadblocks in our path.' Stepping up to the fire place and grabbing a small handful of floo powder before stepping into the hearth, Moody was stopped before he could callout where he was wanting to go by Tonks finally speaking.

'Thanks Moody, you have no idea how much this will mean to Harry,' Moody gave another small smile before calling out his destination, as she stared at the fire place hearth she finished quietly, 'and me,' before walking over to the apparition point and leaving #12.

**_--- Scene Break – outside #4 Privet Drive ---_**

It was a little after two Pm when Tonks arrived in the backyard of Number 4. All she had to do now was try and figure out how she was going to break the news to Harry, _'it's not like I can just go up to him and say gee guess what Dumbledore is trying to get you killed, and oh guess what else even if you do survive he is just going to put you in Azkaban, isn't that great news?'_ She thought morosely, letting out a sigh she dropped onto the nearby bench and put her face in her hands, _'Yeah right, face it Tonks, he is likely to just Hex you and be done with it… best to come up with some way to buffer it I guess.'_ After a few minutes of trying to think of something, only to come up empty handed she started to think maybe there had to be another way to look at this, _'Come on girl you weren't in Slytherin for nothing, there has to be away to put a fair enough spin on this that wont end up with you visiting the spell damage ward at St. Mungos. Harry isn't like normal guys; he isn't likely to shoot the messenger… is he? No, he might be pissed about this but he will likely only be pissed at Dumbledore, not me… I hope.'_ Gathering up what courage she could find on such short notice she marched her way towards the house, just as she was about to knock on the door she stopped herself, _'oh god what if he hates me for this? We haven't even really stated to go out and already we have to face what could perhaps be the biggest fight of our relationship? Oh this doesn't sound good,'_ Tonks was so rapped up in her thoughts that she didn't hear Moody apparate into the yard, nor did she hear him walk up behind her, she didn't notice he was there until he spoke to her.

'Tonks, what are you doing out here.' Moody barked,

At the sound of his voice she gave a shocked yelp and spun around attempting to draw her wand in the process, unfortunately as she spun around her feet caught on the uneven surface of the grassy lawn causing her to tumble to the ground. Looking up from the ground she saw Moody standing not three feet away from her current position, laughing at her present predicament. Pulling herself off the ground while giving an indignant huff, she quickly started to berate the older auror, 'just what the hell were you thinking doing something like that, huh Moody? I could have hexed you six ways to Sunday!'

'Tonks you always had the same problem in training, when you put your full attention to something you forgot about everything else going on around you, you should always remember CONSTANT VIGILANCE!! Other wise if I had been a DE you would be nothing but a grease spot right about now.' Moody said as he closed the small distance between him and Tonks, 'and besides from the position you landed in it seems more likely you would have hexed yourself rather than me,' Moody gave another bark of a laugh at the look of complete horror that came to Tonks face, turning serious again he asked. 'So have you told Potter yet?'

Letting out a sigh and slumping her shoulders, 'No I was trying to figure out how the best way to break it too him, and so far the only ways I can think of, generally wind up with me taking a visit to the spell damage ward. Not exactly something I want to rush into let me tell you.'

'Can't say as I blame you there missy, I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one of Potters Hexes either. From what I hear the little bugger packs quite a punch when he wants too. So did you think of anyway to tell him?'

'Well short of shagging him first…' Seeing the cocked eyebrow Moody was shooting her way she hastily continued in an irritated tone. 'No for Merlin's sake Moody I am not going to shag the boy first just so I can break some shit news to him.'

'Hey don't knock it till you try it missy, I have gotten out of many a tight spot by shagging a female agent or two. I remember this one time in Berlin…'

Scrunching her face up in disgust she cut in, 'two things Moody, first EWW that's way too much information,' she protested by waving her hands in front of her, 'and two I don't want to screw this up by using him like that.' Again slumping her shouldering in defeat.

'Relax I was only jerking your chain,' He laughed. 'But perhaps it would be best if we both told him he might take it easier from the both of us. Plus if the situation does get out of control then at least one of us will be able to stun him before he either hurts himself or us.'

'You're probably right,' Tonks sighed. 'I mean he has matured a lot over the last year but I think finding out that Dumbledore is planning to do something like this to him, might just piss him off a little bit.'

'Can't say as I would blame the lad, I'm not even the one affected by it and even I am pissed off.' Said Moody as he shook his head, 'can't say as I know what Albus was thinking when he thought this up. I swear the man has finally lost his perspective on reality. Come on were not doing anybody any good standing around out here chatting ourselves up all day.'

Tonks allowed Moody to take the lead as he made his way around the house towards the front door. 'Say Moody where is everyone, I would have thought that the guards would have come to see what we wanted by now.'

'Before I arrived I ordered them to leave, I figured that it was best if Albus didn't find out that you came back during your scheduled shift at the Ministry. ' Moody knocked on the gleaming white door to number 4, taking a moment to scan the house with his magical eye he took note that only Harry was home. _'Good at least we don't have to worry about the muggles interfering with our talk,'_ he thought to himself. A few seconds later there was the sound of someone running down the stairs, just before the sound of the latch on the door releasing.

'Tonks, Professor, what are you doing here?' Harry asked.

'Potter is it ok if we come in?' Moody growled.

'Yeah sure,' Harry said as he stepped back while holding the door open farther, allowing them to pass him. As soon as they were in the house he drew his wand before they could turn around and pointed it at their backs.

'How many times do I have to tell you boy, CONSTANT VIGILLANCE!! You never allow someone into the house without checking who there are first, unless you have a back up plan.'

'You mean like this Professor?' Harry smirked, causing both aurors to turn around and look at the wand they now had pointed at them.

'Smart kid, I'll give you that, but if we were Death Eaters the best you could hope for would be to take one of us down before the other was on you.'

'True but a well placed Reducto, and you both would be licking your wounds.' Harry said as he lowered his wand towards the ground right in front of them. Seeing this caused the Old auror to smile a rather lopsided grin.

'Good one lad, always thinking, I like to see that. Now what are your questions?' Moody said.

'First professor, where did you give me shit for keeping my wand last summer?'

'In your back pocket, and I still say that your going to loose a butt cheek if you keep it up.'

'Correct, now Tonks, who did you, say was better at the packing charm than you?'

'Well Mum of course, she can even get the socks to fold properly when she does it, mine just comes out in a jumbled mess.' She was touched that he could remember something as simple and innocent as that from over a year ago, firmly cementing in her mind just how much he might actually like her.

'Now your turn lad. What was it that Albus hid from you until the end of term this past year?' Moody growled, leveling his own wand in a blink of an eye at the boy in front of him.

'The fucking Prophecy of course, the lying old manipulative goat.' Harry spat.

'Good, good now that we all know that we are who we say we are is there someplace we can talk?' Moody questioned.

'Sure the Dursleys are gone for the day so we could use the living room I guess,' Harry said motioning them towards the large archway behind them.

Moving into the living room, Harry and Tonks took a seat on the couch, which normally his aunt and cousin would sit on while Moody took the recliner that his uncle normally sat in. The three sat in complete silence for a few minutes while the tension in the air got so thick one could cut it with a knife if they tried, seeing the apprehensive looks on the two aurors faces Harry knew whatever it was they came to tell him he wasn't going to like. Rationalizing that it was better to get it over with quickly rather than letting it drag out Harry decided to try and break the ice. 'So what was it that you needed to talk to me about, I can see that I am likely not going to like whatever it is, so why not just get it over and done with.'

'Harry,' Moody started looking the boy up and down with his real eye while his magical eye kept scanning everywhere else. 'Do you know what a martyr is?'

'Ah yeah sure… why?' Harry replied, his face showing how confused he was by such an odd question.

'Well… ah shit!' Moody said as he slammed his fist down on the arm of the recliner causing the other two to jump a little in response. 'Sorry about that, just there is no real good way to say this.'

'So just what has the oh so great and illustrious bumblebee thought up in my best interest this time?' Harry ground out through clenched teeth.

'Lad… I… Ah, hell He plans on throwing you to the Dementors as soon as this business with Voldemort is done with. He said that we can't take the chance of you going dark on us, and that this is the only sure way to prevent that from happening. I tried to reason with him that you would be the last person to ever go dark… not that I could blame you if you did lad… it's just you don't have it in you to go down that path.' Raising a hand to stop Harry's outraged rebuttal he continued. 'Wait there more you need to hear before we continued with why I am here, As Tonks here just found out, your friends Weasley and Granger are both inactive members of the Order… and have been since the end of your fourth year. Effectively passing on inside information about what is going on in your head. Also scuttlebutt around the headquarters is that they will be staying at Grimmauld and getting special training from select order members this summer, meaning that in all likelihood your going to be stuck here for the remainder of the summer.'

If looks could kill the look Harry had on his face right now would have leveled half of England. 'That bastard, who the fuck does he think he his? Every year I get thrown in one dangerous situation after another while he sits back and fucking watches, then he finishes off the year by sending me back here. JUST WHO THE FUCK DOES HE THINK HE IS!! I AM NOT SOME FUCKING TOY FOR HIM TO PLAY WITH AND THEN JUST DISCARD FOR MERLINS SAKE!!' Harry screamed. During his tirade, the glass in the room started to violently shake and some even began to crack under the constant stress. A slight cracking sound could be heard from the timbers of the house, that were slowly giving way to the growing strain placed upon them from the sudden power shift. Even the trees outside the house seemed to know something was happening as the wind began to pick up, causing the leaves to blow as if a small hurricane was blasting through the area surrounding Number four.

Feeling an almost over baring weight suddenly settle on him, Moody was shocked to see waves of raw magic flowing off of the young teen. Now without the aid of his magical eye he wouldn't have been able to see the waves, at least not to the extent that he was currently, but with it he was able to see the full spectrum of Harry's power building. Fearing that they could be looking at a full blown magical cascade if this kept up, Moody slowly began reaching for his wand in order to stun the boy, in the hopes that the severely pissed off teen didn't notice him before it was too late.

Tonks watched as Harry got angrier and angrier, she knew she had to do something before it was too late, her wand was just not an option she wanted to think of at the moment so she did the only thing she could think of, she talked to him. 'Harry… Harry… please listen too me,' She said in a gentle yet firm voice, while placing a hand on his arm and gently rubbing it up and down between the elbow and shoulder. 'I know you're mad right now but you have to understand that getting mad about it here isn't going to solve the problem, it is only going to make things worse. You need to control your anger and calm down or else you're just going to help prove him right for wanting to put you away.' Watching the young man visibly deflate under her touch she pushed on. 'Moody and I have come up with what we hope is an idea to help you out.' For the next ten minutes Tonks went over everything her and Moody talked about in regards to Harry's new training regime, when she finished talking she noticed that he had visibly calmed down quite a bit since she had begun, now it almost looked like he was ready to fall asleep. Noticing that she was still rubbing his arm she couldn't help but smile and wonder, _'did I do that, did my just rubbing his arm like that calm him that much?.'_ When she went to pull her hand away she noticed that he leaned into her touch, as an attempt to maintain contact with her, instead of pulling her hand away any farther she instead lowered it and took one of his hands in hers and squeezed it tightly while lightly stroking the back of his hand with her thumb.

The squeezing of his hand caused Harry to look up at her for a while, he wasn't sure how long passed it could have been a minute or an hour and right then he didn't care, he saw all the care and concern that was hidden in her eyes, but there was another emotion that for some reason he just couldn't figure out, he knew he had seen it before but for some reason the more he tried to think about it the farther he went from the answer, it was like trying to hold water in your hands, the harder you tried to force the water to stay there the quicker it left. They were shaken out of there thoughts by Moody's gruff voice.

'Shit Potter, that was some show, for a moment there I thought I was going to see a full magical cascade.' Moody continued to chuckle as he watched the two sitting across from him. _'No doubt about it she is good for the boy, and he for her. I just hope Albus doesn't go and do something stupid like trying to split them up, Merlin knows the boy was showing almost as much raw power in those few seconds as Albus does in an entire battle, and he wasn't even at critical mass yet… Merlin help anyone who tries to get between them, because no one else will be stupid enough.'_ He thought to himself.

Harry looked over at Moody for a moment trying to figure out what exactly he was talking about, finally he just gave up and asked, 'Sir what do you mean, magical cascade?'

'Do they teach you nothing at school boy? Magical cascade.' Seeing that Harry was just as confused as ever he went on to explain. 'You know how our magic is connected to our emotions right?' seeing Harry nod yes, he continued. 'When a witch or wizard allow their emotions to get out of control it affects their magic. Now normally that wouldn't be such a big deal, mainly because most witches or wizards simply don't have enough magic to worry about. But every once and a while when a powerful witch or wizard looses control you get what's called a magical cascade. Simply put your emotions feed your magic, and your magic feeds your emotions until your body can't contain it anymore. When that happens you get a right large explosion, you have heard of an H-bomb? Well it is similar to that only on a smaller scale. Instead of taking out entire cities a magical cascade would likely level a few city blocks, depending on the power of the witch or wizard, killing everything within the blast radius. Not a pretty sight let me tell you.' Closing his eyes and shaking his head as if trying to clear a bad memory before it took a hold, Moody stopped for a moment then took a deep breath before he continued. 'Came across a scene of a magical cascade during world war two, almost five city blocks in every direction gone in an instant, not a soul left alive by the time we got there, hell there wasn't even any buildings left standing. I tell you it's not something you ever want to have to see.'

'And you're telling me that I almost… almost did that?' The look of horror that crossed Harry's face almost broke the old wizard's heart, here was a boy who should have been out enjoying life, instead he now had to worry about not only having a severely mental dark wizard chasing him but now he had to worry about loosing control of his temper and killing everyone around him. Moody couldn't help but think of just how unfair life truly could be.

'I could lie to you lad and tell you that everything is going to be alright, but I think you deserve to know the truth. You need to learn a way to control your anger and fast, with the amount of power you were giving off I wouldn't doubt it if you leveled a dozen or better blocks if or when you went. I am going to suggest that Tonks and I teach you occlumency. Maybe even bring Lupin into the fold, what with his natural ability for it, being a werewolf and all, if nothing else it will at least allow you the ability to guide your emotions and keep them in check. But that's for another day, today I want you to just rest. Tonks I managed to secure your time off while I was at the ministry so no need to worry about that. I am also going to recommend that you, Tonks, stay here for the time being, we don't want to risk the muggles riling up the lad before he learns to control his emotions do we. Now if that's ok with everyone I should be going, I still need to talk to a few old friends and see about getting you age restriction removed.'

'Sir I want to thank you.'

'What for lad, you're getting a raw deal and I can't stand to see it happen without you at least having a chance to make something of it.'

'No, well yes I am thankful for that too. But what I meant was I wanted to thank you for not just telling me to do something, you are at least asking my approval which is more than others seem to do, so thank you.' Harry said as he stood up to shake the old aurors hand.

'Think nothing of it lad.' With a small pop Moody was gone from the living room.

Retaking his seat next to Tonks, Harry said, 'well that sure what eventful wasn't it.' A small smirk playing on his face.

'Never a dull day in the life of Harry Potter. Just what have I gotten myself into?' She joked before leaning in and giving him a kiss. 'Come on let's go check out _our_ room for the summer,' she said as she leapt off the couch and pulled him to his feet. 'After all if I am going to be living with you, you really need a bit more space.'

**_--- Scene Break – Headmaster's Office ---_**

Stepping out of the fireplace hearth and into his office Albus Dumbledore felt every one of his 160 years. Things had not gone as he had planned with Alastor, or with the Order meeting earlier that day. For some reason things were spiraling out of control and he was loosing his grip on his means for ending the war. Sure it had only been three out of the many members of the order who had taken a stand against him on the issue of what was best for Harry, but dissension like that has an effect on a group and it wouldn't be too long before all his actions in regards to the young man were going to be brought to light.

Surveying his office, he thought back to the end of last term, he couldn't help but remember all the wanton destruction caused to his office and belongings, by one severely irate teenager. Sure, he had his reasons to be angry and irrational, after all his entire world had just been turned upside down in the matter of a few hours. But the total lack of care and control displayed within these office walls was enough to scare the old wizard, enough to remind him of another wizard who upon finding out something equally as earth shattering caused such a similar level of destruction, it was all told enough for him to draw correlation between one Harry Potter and the Younger and more innocent Tom Riddle. He remembered the day after Tom's first year at Hogwarts when he himself had the distinct displeasure of telling the young man that he wouldn't be allowed to remain at Hogwarts during the summer break. Tom like Harry, had lost control not only over his emotions but his magic as well, in the end it took almost three weeks to repair the damage done to his office, and even then some of the items needed to be replaced because for some reason even the Reparo spell wouldn't fix them… again something those two seemed to share. In the corner of his office was a small pile of maybe ten or fifteen items, which like before couldn't be repaired and would need to be replaced.

Stepping to the side of his office where a portrait of one of the more famous headmaster's of Hogwarts hung, Marcus Pendragon, he greeted the old headmaster and proceeded to give the older headmaster the correct password to the study, which lay behind his portrait. He had used this room for many years and as such, he had gotten to know it very well, so when he entered it he immediately knew that something about the room had changed. Taking a quick glance around the room, he couldn't put his finger on what exactly it was that was different about it but still that thought niggled at the back of his mind.

All the books that lined the room were where they were supposed to be, including the one he had left next to his old reading chair. Walking further into the room to take a more detailed look, he finally figured out what was different about the room when he reached the halfway point. At the far end of the room, he had his own version of the muggle game Risk set up. Unlike the original game he had created this one to show only the British Isles, and the figures on the board where enchanted to show their loyalties, or in general their affiliation with certain groups. On the header board was listed the name of the controlling factions and their leaders and the approximate size of their forces.

**Red** – Tom Riddle aka Voldemort – Death Eaters – 753 Humans, 25 werewolves, 32 giants

**Blue** – Albus Dumbledore – Order of the Phoenix/Hogwarts/Ministry – 261 Humans, 2 Giants, 1 Goblin/Human, 1 Phoenix, 1 Centaur

**White** – Cornelius Fudge – Ministry – 200 Humans

All that was what the board normally displayed, what wasn't normal, and what caught his attention was the new player added to the board.

**Green** – Harry Potter – No group name as of yet – 3 Humans, 1 werewolf, 1 house elf, 1 owl.

'Well this is interesting, just what have you been up to my boy… yes what indeed.' He said as he checked the spells he had placed on the board to make sure there wasn't any degradation. Finding none he glanced back up to the header board again and was shocked to find it had updated it's self, which wasn't out of the ordinary since he had designed it that way, he was more shocked at how it was updated not that it was. It now read.

**Green** – Harry Potter – No group name as of yet – 12 Humans, 1 werewolf, 2 house elves, 1 owl.

While the listings under his name had gone down by roughly the same amount as Harry had gained, minus the house elves.

Over the next couple hours he repeatedly checked on the Header board and as was the same as the first time Harry's group kept increasing while his and Cornelius' kept decreasing.

'Harry, my boy, what are you doing? This shouldn't be happening… the wards around private drive tell me he hasn't left the house since he arrived last night, Nor has he received or sent any mail, so how is that he is getting people to follow him.' He pondered out loud; sitting down in his old reading chair, he began to think of all the ways that Harry could be amassing a following in such short order and in the end was left with only one conclusion. 'Moody and the others, this must be their doing. I will need to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible otherwise I could be looking at a fight on two fronts. It will drain my resources too much if that was allowed to happen, no I need to put a stop to this now before it is too late… but how?'

'Perhaps it is time to call his friends into active status and see if they can learn anything from him about what is going on. Yes, that seems the best course of action at the moment. Hmm I think I shall also call Kingsley and see if he can assign Nymphadora too something that will distance her from Harry for the time being, until such time as I can ascertain what exactly is going on.'

Walking over to the fireplace in his study, he grabbed a pinch of floo powder and tossed it into the flames while calling out, 'Kingsley Shacklebolt's office Ministry of magic.'

**_--- Scene Break – July 10th - #4 Privet Drive ---_**

'Ok Harry, it says here for you too add the powered Manticore horns then stir it six time counter-clockwise then once clockwise. Once you're done that we just need to let it cool. It says the colour should be a lime green with a slightly thicker consistency than the healing draught we made last week.' Tonks read off the potions recipe that was lying in front of her. It had taken nearly two weeks for them to finish the potion required for testing Harry's possibility of being a Metamorphmagus. But finally after all that time they were reaching the point were they would know for sure if he was one or not.

'Does it say how fast I have to stir it?' Harry wondered as he added the last of the powered Manticore horn.

'No,' Tonks frowned, while furrowing her brow in concentration. 'But I think it would be safe to guess about one revolution per second like most other potions.'

'Ok and… we're done.' Harry exclaimed as he finished making the final revolution. 'How long does it say to let it cool for?'

'It says to leave it for half an hour before pouring it into the vials, then to leave it for another five minutes before drinking.' Tonks parroted.

'Umm… not to sound stupid or anything but why can't we just use a cooling charm on it?' Harry asked.

'Snape really did bugger up your potions lessons didn't he?' Tonks asked rhetorically, before shaking her head and continuing. 'The reason why we can't cast a cooling charm on this particular potion is because the Manticore horns when mixed with dragon liver react's badly if cooled too quickly. Now if you only had one or the other in the potion then yes you could use a cooling charm but when you use them both… well lets just say if we wanted to re-paint the walls an ever so lovely lime green colour, then yes by all means use a cooling charm.'

'Umm yeah… let's try to avoid that at all costs why don't we?' He chuckled as he pulled the newly finished potion off of the fire and allowing it too cool. Taking his seat next to the table he had been working at he turned to face Tonks. "Any word yet on when Moony and Moody are stopping by next? As odd as it is to hear myself say this, I am looking forward to my next Occlumency lesson.'

'Moody said they would be by later today sometime, he also said that he has something he wants to give you. Though knowing him it will be something to help you find those plotting against you.' She finished with a small laugh.

'Yeah, most likely another foe glass or dark remember ball. You know when he gave me the first one I thought he was crazy… well more crazy than I already did that is.' Letting out a light chuckle before getting somber, he went on. 'In all seriousness Tonks I really hope it's the underage magic certificate, I mean while all this physical training has been nice and has certainly done wonders for my body… I can feel my magic, it's… itching, no that's not the right word.' He said shaking his head, 'clawing, I guess that's more accurate of a description, to get out… to move again. I know this sounds really strange but…'

'Harry,' Tonks started in a soft low tone. 'How long have you been feeling this way?'

'I don't know I guess maybe a week or two… why?'

'Have you ever heard or magical maturation?' Seeing Harry shake his head negatively she carried on. 'Magical maturation is something that everyone with magical abilities goes through at some point or another. For some it only takes a few hours for others it can take almost a month.'

'Um ok… that really clears things up for me… yeah thanks.' Harry said while blinking his eyes owlishly, earning himself a slap to the arm for his troubles.

'Hey I am neither a teacher nor a mother so give me a break here I am winging it.' Tonks shrugged her shoulders. 'Think of it like this, its magical puberty… you do know what puberty is right?' She finished as she cocked an eyebrow in his direction.

'Yes, why thank you Dr. I do know what puberty is. So what does this mean… am I going to get magical pimples that breathe fire or some other rot like that?' Harry drawled in a sarcastic tone.

'You only wish. But truthfully it's not that bad, basically what's happening is that you magic is growing and with it comes the feelings you're well… feeling. Your magic grows and then settles, then grows some more. All a little disconcerting really, I mean to think it took you years to get a handle on your current power level only to have to relearn that control again, not really the most pleasant idea when you think about it.

'Now that's not to say there isn't some real bonus' that come with the process, in some of the older blood lines, traits are known to be passed down through the line. Sort of like how one would pass down an heirloom to the next generation. With the blacks it was heightened reflexes and an affinity for offensive magic… namely the darker of the offensive magics. I am not sure what you might get from the Potter's since most families keep their gifts a secret from the others as a way to ensure their superiority over them.'

'So basically what you're telling me is that everything I have learned in the last few years in regards to controlling my power was for nothing… well isn't that just bloody perfect!'

'It's not really that bad you know…' Tonks commented dryly.

Harry was saved from having to make a reply when there came a barely noticeable knock on the front door, which was followed closely by the agitated voice of Vernon Dursley, yelling up the stairs. 'Get your ruddy arse down here boy, this instant!'

Groaning to himself at the utter lack of tact his uncle seemed to put into anything concerning him; He couldn't help but wonder why it was that the 'old bastard' had thought leaving him here was a good idea. Shaking his head to clear the depressing thoughts before they took hold, he slowly rose from his seat he made his way to his bedroom door.

Standing on the landing looking down on the front door he was shocked to see not only Moody and Remus, but also over half of the Order members he knew standing gathered around the front entrance. Marshaling the courage he could find on such short notice, he stepped forth from the shadows that were concealing him at the top of the stairs and into their line of sight. 'Moody, Remus, something tells me this isn't your normal visit. I am going to take a wild guess here and say that you have something important you want to talk about. Am I right?' Harry spoke rhetorically. 'And from the fact that you have asked many of the people I know from the order to come, I am also going to hazard a guess that it might not be something I particularly want to hear either. Be that as it may I suggest we move this conversation to more… _private_ surroundings as I know the presence of our kind makes my dear uncle here quite uncomfortable.' He said the last part while smirking at his uncle's red face. 'Please fallow me to my room I am sure we can have our chat there.'

'Now listen here boy, I will not have these… these… _people_ in my house. If you're looking to have this little meeting or whatever you want to call it, you will have to find someplace else to do it because it wont be happening here, is that understood.' Vernon blustered all the while advancing on his nephew.

'Uncle, uncle, uncle.' Harry muttered while shaking his head slowly. 'These fine people only ask a moment of my time and then they will be gone, surely you can see fit to allow that now can't you. I assure you that once our business is complete they will take their leave.' He said while taking a step down the stairs and lifting his head so his uncle could clearly see the resolute look within his eyes. 'But until then they will be my guests, in my room. I would ask that you and yours don't interrupt as what you may hear, may not… sit well with you.' Seeing Vernon take a step back he took it as a sign that his message rang through loud and clear, but silently he hoped to not have to try and prove the issue with his uncle as it could very well lead to more problems for him, and that was something he was looking for anymore of. 'Very good now if everyone would please fallow me, we can get this over with.' Turning around he lead the now shocked group of witches and wizard to what used to be the smallest bedroom in number 4.

Once through the door he took the foe glass he had taken to carrying around with him, at the advice of moody, out of his pocket to check and see if those who he had just invited up were a threat or not. He let out an explosive breath when the figures shown within the device were still as blurry as when moody gave it too him. Turning to face the door, he motioned for the others to take a seat while he closed the door.

'Mr. Potter, would you mind explaining what just took place downstairs.' Minerva McGonagall said as she turned and faced one of her favorite students.

'Professor?'

'Mr. Potter, I am neither stupid nor was I born yesterday, I am talking about what took place between yourself and your uncle downstairs.' She said as she crossed her arms and fixed Harry with one of her patented 'don't you dare lie to me' stares that seems to have the unmistakable habit of forcing the truth out of her students faster than even a fully trained Legilimens could.

'Professor, I…'

'Mr. Potter!' Minerva said warningly.

'You know I am getting more than a little sick of everyone thinking they have the right to tell me what I should and shouldn't share with people. Just because I am famous… for something, I can't even properly remember I might add… does that not allow me even the smallest amount of freedom. It would seem as though everything about me must be laid bare for the world to examine and frankly I am getting more than a little sick of it. So please tell me why exactly it is that I should tell you anything, no matter who you might be?' He said as he fixed her with one of his own glares, one that would make even Snape proud.

'Mr. Potter, well I never! ...' Minerva huffed.

'To steal a phrase from an old muggle movie I once heard, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!' Harry countered.

'Minerva!' Moody said effectively cutting off her biting remark before it could escape her lips. 'He has every right to with hold anything he wants too, school is neither in session, nor are you his teacher at the moment, and frankly he has a damn good point. It is his life!' Turning to face Harry he continued, 'and you lad, while I commend you on trying to take charge of you life, this is quite frankly the wrong time to start. For all of us to work together they need to see what it is exactly that they will be going up against Albus for, and while I agree that you should be able to keep certain things to yourself, I am afraid that it might not be possible at the moment.'

'Alright, fine have it your way. The night I arrived something happened to change the way things worked around here.' Harry groused. 'Tonks do we still have pensive around here, or did you take it back home?'

'I think we left it on the shelf over there,' Tonks replied as she pointed to the shelf in question.

Walking across the room Harry grabbed the pensive off the shelf and made quick work of pulling the necessary memories out of his head and placing them within the pensive for viewing. 'I will give you all this one warning, nothing you see here is to ever leave this room. I can think of too many people who would try to use this against me and honestly that is not something I want to have to deal with at the moment.' Seeing that everyone present accepted his warning/condition he placed the pensive on the table in the center of the room and stepped back, allowing the others who had not seen the memory clear access to the pensive.

Over the next half hour or so while the others were viewing the pensive memory, he and Tonks took the time to finish the potion that they had started before the others arrival, finishing up just as the first of them came out of the memory.

The sight that met his eyes when he saw the face of his head of house, he was sure would even put the fear of god into Voldemort. Here was a woman who pried herself on the level of control she had not only over her students but over her emotions, to see her in such a state of furry was something that Harry was sure he never wanted to see again… at least not directed at him anyway. She wasn't the only one who looked like they wanted to go downstairs and kill the fat bastard and his family for what they had done. No, it seemed as if almost everyone who had seen the memory was having similar feelings though to different degrees. Remus, it seemed was fighting an internal battle, wherein his inner wolf was begging to go and rip the fat man throat out, Kingsley seemed to be compiling a list of spells he could use without getting in trouble. The real shocker was Moody; he was sitting there with a pleased smirk on his grizzly face, something that didn't go unnoticed by those around him.

'And just what the bloody hell has you so damn happy,' Minerva yelled while glaring at the old Auror.

It was at this point that Moody lost control and began laughing. Harry turned to Tonks and in a stage whisper said, 'You know when I said I thought he was crazy before?' seeing her stunned nod he continued, 'That right there just kind of seals the deal, don't it.' He said while pointing towards the still laughing Auror, causing everyone else to nod in agreement.

Remus who was taking this harder than the others seemed to snap as he heard the laughter coming from Moody and in a flash he was out of his seat and had the old auror pinned against the wall by his throat. 'You find something funny in seeing Harry getting beaten, do you?' Remus growled out.

'Hardly lad, but what I do find funny is the fact that even without a wand he managed to dispatch that fat lump like he was a rag doll… all the while not even realizing what he was doing.' Moody spit out between laughs. 'The fact that he also managed to scare the wits out of those muggles was also an added bonus.'

'Huh?' was all Remus said as he let his grip loosen, causing the older wizard to slump to the floor.

'That's right the boy performed wandless magic, albeit not the refined form that comes from years and years of practice, but still wandless magic, and from the looks of it he used a fair bit of power in it too.' Moody said as he picked himself up off the floor.

'Excuse me… what now? Are you telling me I did wandless magic? I thought that was impossible!' Harry exclaimed, still confused from what had just taken place.

'Right you are boy, for most witches and wizards it is impossible. Nevertheless, it would seem as though you might have a talent for it. Good thing too because both Albus and Voldemort also have a talent in that particular field of magic.'

'Wandless magic, you say… hmm…. Interesting that could help us out a bit with his training, don't you think so Minerva?' Kingsley said.

'Wandless magic… but, but how I have never… But I… oh hell!' Harry said in frustration, as he threw his arms in the air and fell back onto the couch behind him.

'I think Kingsley is right, it should help us with his training… should he accept that is.' Minerva said as she turned to face Harry. 'So do you accept?'

'Ok… whoa slow down I think I missed something here. What exactly are we talking about here?'

'We are talking about the magical training program we want to set up for you, we had planned on getting help from within the ministry to help conceal you use of magic while we were training you, but with this new development that shouldn't be a problem.' Moody stated.

'We had planned on having one of our people who works in the Ministry in the underage magic department to intercept your violations before they could be relayed to the proper people. They would have only been able to do this for a couple hours a day or else they might be found out.' Kingsley finished.

'What do you mean 'it shouldn't be a problem'? In my second year I got in trouble for Dobby moving a cake onto my uncle's boss's wife during a dinner party, and again in my third year for blowing up my aunt and turning her into a living hot air balloon… without the aid of a wand I might add. Then there is the problem I had with the dementors last year, and the trial that came after. So please tell me how it is that I wont be getting expelled for this and then we can work out the details.' Harry said in patronizing and slightly sarcastic tone.

'If I had to guess I would say that they put a personal tracking charm on you or your wand, if I had to guess I would say it would have happened shortly after first attending Hogwarts. Because as far as I know none of your accidental magic showed up on the scanners. So it has to be something that was added since you started school.' Kingsley supposed.

'Give me a second lad, maybe I can determine which spells they used and help you out some.' Waving his wand around Harry's head in a counter clockwise circle while muttering different incantations, resulted in various colours of light to appear on and around Harry. 'Now this is interesting, see this bright orange one here…. And the light blue one just above his wand hand? Those are independent tracking spells, or in other words, non-ministry sanctioned ones. Likely if I dug a little deeper I would find Albus' tracks on them.' Moody said in a gruff voice. 'Going to be a right pain in the ass to remove those ones two, the official ones should be easy enough to get ride off but it looks like whoever put those others on wanted to make sure no one could remove them… at least not without attracting their attention before the spells were removed.'

'Ok so what exactly do these spells do anyway.' Harry queried.

'Well as I said the other spells you see are you run of the mill ministry spells designed for tracking ones use of magic, but…'

'Oh I am _so_ not going to like this am I?' Harry groused.

'But,' Moody continued without letting on that he had even heard Harry's complaint. 'The orange one seems to be something like a location tracker, likely it is what allows Albus to know when you're here in the house and when you have left. The light blue one though… that one is the most interesting… it doesn't exactly look like a tracking spell but at the same time it does. If I had to guess, I would say that Albus is using this one to keep tabs not on the spells you have been using but more on the type of spells you have been using.'

'That would make sense given his current level of mistrust he has shown in regards to Harry and his well being.' Remus theorized. 'I still have to wonder when it was he put them on him, I mean yes we know it was likely Albus who did it, but when. It couldn't have been while he was away at school… could it?' Turning to face his old head of house, he voiced his concerns, 'Minerva…?'

'Unlikely, someone would have noticed if Harry was gone from sight for too long in his first couple years, likely it was done at the end of the year when he usually spends his time in the hospital wing' She said as she directed a rueful smile at Harry, who had the decency to blush a little. 'or during the summer, and since Mr. Potter has yet to tell us of when Albus has stopped by for some tea, it would seem a likely fact that if it had been during the summer that Mr. Potter had his memory altered to cover up the event. As much as it pains me to say so, that is likely more closer to the truth than the first option since there would be too many people at the school to try and cover something like this up. Not too say he couldn't do it, just that it would be harder to do so.'

'So you're telling me that not only have I been tagged like some animal, but it is quite possible that my memory of being tagged was wiped to prevent me from slipping the leash so to speak? Well isn't that just bloody fantastic!' Harry huffed contemptuously. 'So now for the million pound question… what do we do about, and how do we make sure it doesn't happen again?'

'The ministry ones are simple a quick counter and they are gone… but Potter, as much as I hate to say it, I don't think there is much we really can do about the others… at least not without letting Albus know we are trying to do something about it anyway. We might be able to temporarily block them but at best it would only give us a few hours of free time, and likely as cunning as the old man is he has safe guards set up incase something like this happens.' Kingsley explained in his deep baritone.

Tonks who had been sitting on the couch next to Harry, could almost feel the waves of emotions rolling off him like a tidal storm hitting the beach. When she looked into his eyes she could see the sorrow begging to take over and her heart bled for him, again she wish to the gods above that she could in someway take away his burden and pain if only for a moment. Quickly moving herself so she was sitting on his lap she proceeded to pull him into a tender hug, while whispering in his ears, 'It's going to be ok Harry, listen to me, together we will beat this and nothing anyone says or does will change that.' They were broken from their embrace by the almost shrill scream from Minerva.

'Ms. Tonks, what in the name of cerci do you think you are doing? You should be ashamed of yourself, he is a minor!' Minerva ranted. 'What would your mother think of such a thing, it's… it's…' However she never got to finish her thought as in the time it took one severely shocked and slightly shaken auror to jump up from her previous sitting arrangements, did it take a highly emotionally charge wizard to stand and re-direct his anger at his head of house.

'Professor, you would do well to remember this, since I will only say it once. Stay the hell out of our business. Whatever happens between Dora and myself, is just that between Dora and myself. I will not take you belittling her or I for our choices, and should you feel the need to continue please don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!' Harry growled, As he spoke the air seemed to chill and the wind seemed to pick up, causing papers that had previously been sitting on the coffee table in the middle of the room to take to the air. All the while a very visible aura appeared around said young wizard, crackling and arcing with all it's might, as if to emphasize just how pissed off he really was.

Seeing the others in the room were staring at him with a mixture of fear and confusion didn't help his already stressed demeanor in the least, if nothing else it seemed to add fuel to the preverbal fire. It wasn't until his eye settled on the lithe form of Tonks that it almost broke his heart, as she too had taken a step back from him in fear of what she was witnessing.

Seeing the woman he cared for, even if he wouldn't admit it too himself, looking at him in fear was enough to break through his emotionally charged state and cause him to collapse back onto the couch. Leaning forward he placed his head in his hands as an effort to calm his still unsettled mind, it wasn't until he felt the couch shift signaling the fact that Tonks has taken her seat next to him did he look up. Now looking in to her eyes, he could still see the hints of fear that lingered from before but beneath that, he could also see the care and compassion that always seemed to be there when she looked at him these days.

Reaching out with a tentative hand Tonks took one of Harry's hands in hers and gave it a light squeeze. 'That was an impressive show there, Tiger!' Tonks grinned trying to bring a little laughter back into the more sedate mood of the room.

There moment was short lived as the others in the room began to regain their voices, the first too find his voice was Remus, voicing the question that seemed to be on everyone's mind. 'H-Harry… what the… what the hell was that exactly… and would you mind telling me why it was that you were growling?'

Harry's head snapped up at hearing the word growling and all he could manage was a barely whispered 'growling?'

'Yes growling!' and increasingly agitated Remus said. 'If I didn't know any better I would have guessed from your reaction that you had been recently bitten… but that's not possible I would have smelled it on you when we first met today. So I ask again why is it that you were growling?'

'Um I hate to break it too you Remus but I wasn't growling. I was speaking normal English… wasn't I?' He replied as a sick look washed across his face.

'No lad you were growling, of that we are sure. What you said though… Lupin?' Moody said as he turned to look at the final marauder.

'I am quite sure that it goes without saying that what was said, is best left to your imagination rather than needing to be repeated.' answered Remus.

'You know…' Minerva almost whispered, Moody had told her of Harry's impressive showing when he was informed of what Albus' plans for him after the final battle where. But if she was honest with herself, and she always tried to be, she hadn't believed it, but when faced with it first hand she had to admit that it was slightly over powering. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts and to bring her back on task, she noticed that all the eyes in the room were now focused directly on her. Releasing a nervous cough, she continued with more confidence than before. 'You know, it's not uncommon for those who are close to achieving an Animagus transformation to take on the characteristics of those animals. It is possible that Mr. Potter here is close to crossing the thresh hold so to speak. So Mr. Potter how long _have_ you been experimenting with your Animagus ability, and I have to ask what type of animal is it?'

All Harry could say was, 'Ah crud!' as he let his head fall back into his hands.

Seeing the slightly distraught teen sitting across from her Minerva drew the most obvious conclusion she could from the scene. 'Are you trying to tell me Mr. Potter that you _haven't_ been experimenting with the Animagus transformation? And that you have _no idea_ what animal you are going to become?' she said a more than skeptical tone.

Leaving his head in his hands Harry nodded, or at least he attempted to as much as he could while sitting in that position.

'Cerci have mercy, you can't… you can't expect me to believe that can you… it… it just doesn't happen that way… There is a set way in which one uses to become an Animagus, without it, well it could be dangerous.'

'Ma'am please I mean this with all the respect I can muster at the moment, but when exactly has anything ever been normal when it concerns me and magic?' Harry retorted.

'Then it is settled, as soon as we can we will start your training to become an Animagus. Since it neither requires a wand nor any magic outside of the potion to effect the first change, no one will be the wiser for it.' She replied in what some would call an almost amused voice. 'Now Mr. Potter would you like to see what your animal is going to be? We wont be able to give you the potion which will effect the change yet, since I don't have any in stand by. But I can at least perform the spell which will tell us which animal your going to change into.'

Harry's head snapped up with such force that those around him were surprised they didn't here it snap. 'There's a spell to tell which animal you will become? And your willing to perform it right now?' he said with no small amount of awe creeping into his voice, after all this was his by-the-book-professor, who Harry felt under normal circumstances would be berating him for trying something that the ministry considered illegal.

'Mr. Potter, there is nothing to worry about just sit still while I perform the charm. When it is finished, if you have the ability to take an Animagus form, there should be a grayish mist form beside you. Inside of which we should see what your animal will be, when the mist appears you will have to try and memorize as much as you can about the animal, as the mist wont last very long, a few minutes at most.' Pulling her wand from its hiding spot she carefully cast the Animagus revealing charm.

Almost as soon as she finished the spell the Grayish mist started to form, from there things went to where they normally went whenever Harry Potter was involved… into the land of the unexpected. First off it should have taken a few minutes for the spell to settle before the mist began to form, secondly what was shown inside the mist wasn't what should have been. Sure there was an animal there but no one could clearly make it out, and for a moment or two it looked like it shifted to another form entirely and then back again. Within two minutes the mist was gone, leaving a group of confused individuals behind in its wake.

'Ok so I am going to take a wild guess and say that, that' Harry said pointing to the space where the grayish mist previously was. 'Wasn't normal.'

'Far from it, Mr. Potter, far from it indeed. In all the years I have been using this spell to determine which of my student processed the ability of Animagus transformation, I have never seen anything like that. Mr. Potter I am sorry but at the moment I am at a loss as to what actually happened, I will have to look over some of the old notes I have at the school and see if I can determine what went wrong. Maybe by our next meeting I will have some answers for you, though should you think of anything send me an owl.'

**_--- Scene Break – July 10th - night- #4 Privet Drive ---_**

It had been a couple hours since the others had left, in that time Harry had yet another run in with his uncle over 'the freaks', as he liked to call them, being in his house. Though like the last time Harry _gently_ reminded his uncle that things had changed and that he was no longer going to take the same crap he always had from him or the rest of his family.

As it was Harry was just now returning to his and Tonks' bedroom from what he was certain wouldn't be the last of such altercation's and while it was relieving to know that his uncle wouldn't push the issue… at least not when he wasn't sure he would come out on top anyway, it was still draining on Harry psyche. And so it was that as Harry entered the former smallest bedroom at Privet drive that he was hoping against hope that he would have a quiet night, free from the excitements of earlier in the day.

'There you are, how did it go down there?' Tonks worriedly asked.

'Oh about as well as I can expect I guess, the blustered for a while about how us 'freaks' are tainting his good name and how we are 'corrupting' his ever so innocent son, more than likely leading him too a life of crime he said, like the miniature whale wasn't already heading that way. Christ the boy has been doing everything short of knocking over a liquor store since he could walk so how he expects us to corrupt him is beyond me.' Harry shrugged his shoulders, while trying to hold back the chortle that threatened to escape his lips. 'Right big ass he is, my aunt isn't much better either. She went on about how we' he said as he pointed between himself and Tonks. 'We're living in sin and that we would end up like my mum and dad is we weren't careful.' Putting a finger to his chin while pretending to think, he continued. 'Now I just have to figure out if she means that we are going to be killed or if she is referring to the fact that we are going to have an, and I quote, an ungrateful little brat, end quote.'

'Well your taking that is stride now aren't you. I would have thought that little dig at your parents would have pissed you off more than it has.' Tonks spoke from her position on the couch.

'Well the way that I look at it now is this. They were never really my family, the idiots down stairs I mean, not my parents. So really what does it matter what they think, in a few years I will never have to come back here if I don't want too, so they can go about their dreamy little lives and I can live mine.'

Standing up from where she sat she crossed the room and brought him into a tight hug, 'You know it's ok to show it if they hurt you. You don't always have to be the big tough savior you know.'

'I know that, it's just, I have had to hide what I felt for so many years that I had to fine someway to cope with it and frankly joking is my way of relieving the pent up tension. But enough of that lets do something else… hey we never did get to test out that potion earlier, what say we do that and see just how talented I am going to be.' He joked.

'Oh goody!' Tonks exclaimed, almost acting like a kid a Christmas as she ran across the room to grab the vile from the shelf where they had put it earlier. While Harry made his way to the couch and took a seat, after gabbing the vile she took a seat next too him and just before handing it too him she pulled it away and turned serious. 'You know there are various levels of the gift and it is likely that you wont be quite as… talented as me, so don't feel bad if your not… ok?'

'Right,' he said as he took the now offered vile from her. Staring into the liquid, he watched it swirl and change consistency as he held it a few inches from his eyes. 'You know I think this could be a good thing, for so long I have tried to be _normal, _and even a few weeks ago I would have had a fit if I found out I was different from everyone else. But now… I mean come on I found out today that I have at least some talent in wandless magic, that I will have some sort of Animagus ability, and that there have been tracking charms placed on my wand and person, for which I had no knowledge. Quite honestly this,' he said as he lift the vile a little to indicate what he was referring too, 'doesn't seem like that big a deal anymore.' Raising the vile to his lips he paused for a minute before tossing it back in a single shot. 'God that's disgusting, why they can't create potions that actually taste good be beyond me.' He grimaced. 'So now what.'

'Give it a minute, we should see the effects any second.' Tonks placated. No sooner had she finished speaking than the potion started to work, as a soft orange glow grew around his body, from head to toe. Marveling at the striking colour Harry failed to notice the reaction of the woman beside him to this display.

'This is cool, so what does orange mean?... Tonks?' he questioned as he turned to face her.

'Orange?' she wondered. 'What the hell… But orange? No that's not right we must have done something wrong in the brewing, its not supposed to be orange.' She said shaking her head.

'Tonks what do you mean it's not supposed to be orange. What is it supposed to be?' he pressed as a touch of worry entered his voice. At that moment the glow began to slowly faded back into the nothingness from which it came.

'Harry there are supposed to be only three different colours for this potion, blue, red, and green. Blue meaning full potential, read meaning partial potential, and green meaning none, or next to no potential. I… honestly have no idea what orange means.' She said as she leafed through the book that they used to make the potion, stopping on the instructions page. 'Are you sure we followed the directions correctly, I mean if we messed up even one-step we could have created a poison for all I know.'

'I don't…'

'Think damn it!'

'Yes, Yes I am sure I followed your directions to the letter. I mean other than the speed of the mixing where we took a guess at how fast to mix it everything else was exact.'

'Well at least we know then that we didn't make a poison, worst we would have done would to have been to make a defective potion, not life threatening, just defective. I will have to talk to Minerva to be sure, but it looks like you should be fine.'

Harry was about to make a smart remark, when he was interrupted by a tapping on the bedroom window. They turned to see three owls sitting none to patiently on the window sill just outside his bedroom window, Hedwig, Pig and an unknown regal looking tawny, which looked similar to those Harry had seen used at Hogwarts for official mail. Walking across the room Harry opened the window allowing the Owls to enter, Hedwig and the tawny flew in and landed on the desk, next to Hedwig's cage. All the while Pig was going nuts flying around in circles above Harry's head, hooting while he circled, quickly grabbing a pillow case off of the bed, Harry raised it above his head like a big butterfly net and trapped the hyperactive little owl before it could wake his relatives. Grabbing the roll of parchment that was tied around Pig's leg, he moved the bird, still inside the pillow case, back towards the window and set him free telling it that, he would send Hedwig with the reply, the little owl hooted once and left zoomed back out the still open window and off into the darkness. Harry moved back to the desk where the other owls waited for him to relieve them of their burden, he first took the letter that was being carried by the tawny and offered it some owl treats before sending it on its way, reaching over he gently took the pro-offered letter off of Hedwig's leg and walked back over to the bed where Tonks was sitting.

Harry chose to open the unknown letter first, figuring that the other two letters were the ones Tonks had told him to expect after the last order meeting.

**_--- Letter #1 ---_**

_Dear Harry_

_I know that normally you would be getting ready to leave your relatives shortly after your birthday, but this year because of everything that has happened that will not be able to happen. I feel that you need to stay there as long as is possible in order to activate the blood charm to its fullest potential. _

_I know what you're going to say 'but the thing hasn't worked so far, so why bother?' well after speaking with Professor Flintwik about the blood protection, he and I have come to the conclusion that, that is because the charm hasn't had enough time to fully charge. I know this is a disappointment to you and I wish I could allow you to move to headquarters, but I am only looking out for your best interests when I insist that you stay at the Dursley's until either I say it is safe to leave or until the first of September. _

_I have arranged it so that there will be an honor guard to take you to the train on September 1st, and you need not worry about your school supplies as I will have already gotten them for you by the time you arrive at school. _

_Again I am sorry that this has to be done but it is for your own well being that you stay there, I look forward to seeing you on September 1st when you arrive at school._

_Sincerely;_

_Albus Dumbledore._

**_--- End Letter #1 ---_**

Harry was pissed when he finished reading the letter; he hated Dumbledore now more than ever. He had hoped that what Tonks had over heard after the last meeting was some sort of mistake or that maybe the old man had changed his mind, but after reading the letter he knew that no matter what happened he was in this alone… no he stopped himself 'Tonks is with me, I am no longer alone in this, I just wish there was someway to prove to the old goat that what he fears is wrong, but the chances of getting him to admit he is wrong is like trying to changed the orbit of the planets… it's just not going to happen,' Harry thought to himself. Looking over at Tonks Harry noticed that she wore the same look of distaste that he now had on his face, he wondered how many others would find out just how manipulative the old man was, before it was too late. Crumpling up the letter and tossing it into the waste bin next too his desk he moved on to the letter from Ron.

**_--- Letter: Ron ---_**

_Hey mate;_

_Sorry it has taken me so long to write, I have been busy helping Fred and George in their new shop, and just haven't had the time to write lately. _

_I hate to tell you this but the family and I are going away for the summer, in fact we should be gone by tomorrow evening, we are going to Romania to visit Charlie at the Dragon preserve there. Ginny is really excited about it; she is now thinking that she might want to go through to be a dragon tamer when she graduates, so Charlie is setting her up with an apprenticeship of sorts while we are over there for our vacation. Unfortunately we wont be back from Romania until late on August 31st and as such you wont be able to come to the burrow for the summer, I was looking forward to trouncing you in chess yet again this summer as well as trying to get in some practice for the upcoming quidditch season at school, but it looks like that wont be happening. _

_Anyway I should be going and I am looking forward to catching up with you on the train ride to school_

_As always you best mate;_

_Ron_

**_--- End Letter: Ron ---_**

Harry was just about to throw this letter in the waste bin when Tonks rested a hand on his arm, he turned to look at her for a second before she spoke, 'are you ok, I am mean it is a right shitty thing they are doing, but are you ok.'

'Yeah I guess I am fine,' Harry sighed, 'I mean Ron and I have had our differences since fourth year. Hell maybe even before but I was too blind to see them, but it still hurts that he would openly lie to me. Hell if he had just told me that he was going to be getting special training I would have been happy for him, but for him to lie about it just makes it hurt that much more.' Harry finished by throwing the letter into the waste bin before moving on to Hermione's.

**_--- Letter: Hermione ---_**

_Dear Harry;_

_Everything is fine here, there were no lasting effects from the incident at the DOM, and I am still glad that you allowed us to go with you; I hope your not blaming yourself for anything that happened there, since it was not your fault. You tried to check out your sources but Kreacher lied to you, and what with your other visions coming true you were left with no other recourse other than to do exactly what you did, I am sorry that Sirius died and I hope that you will allow me to be a sound board should you ever need someone to talk to about the grief._

_Now onto happier topics, I owled Professor McGonagall, and she has informed me that our owl results will be sent out on August 1st. Isn't it exciting in just over two weeks we will find out how well we did, I can't wait. Though I am still nervous about it, what if I failed them all? What would I do then? I couldn't very well start over, that would take too long. Oh well I guess we will find out as soon as they are sent, but that doesn't mean I am not going to start preparing for our N.E.W.T.S. you know what they say 'it's never too early to plan a head.'_

_Also I guess I won't be able to see you at all this summer, my parents are taking me on a trip to Greece for the summer and then we are going to meet up with Ron's family in Romania for the remainder. I wish you could come but Professor Dumbledore assured us that you would be safer at the Dursley's, than out on a Dragon preserve. I have to tell you that I am really looking forward to seeing all the different types of dragons they have there, I even hear they have a rare Egyptian water dragon, I have read that there is only about 1000 still in existence, apparently during the last Goblin rebellion they were nearly wiped out, because the wizards at the time were using them to flood the mine shafts occupied by the Goblins, so the Goblins took to killing them off in the thousands. It is really sad, but I can't wait to see one up close._

_Anyway I should be going; I still need to finish packing, since we are leaving tomorrow. Owl me when you get your results, I am interested in how you did._

_Hermione_

**_--- End Letter: Hermione ---_**

Hermione's letter seemed to hurt even more than Ron's had, Harry noticed after he had finished reading it that he felt the familiar stinging from unshed tears, he considered Hermione a sister of sorts, and to have this type of betrayal, it was almost too much for him to handle. Calling on the Occlumency that Tonks had been teaching him he pushed these thoughts to the back of his mind, as to keep a tight rein on his emotions.

Tonks looked over at Harry a couple times while they were reading the letters and it seemed to her that with each letter he read it hurt him that much more. Now not only was he being treated like a little child, whose opinion and feelings were of little consequence. But now he was also being lied to and betrayed by his two supposed best friends. At that moment she wished she could take all his pain away, even if for only a few minutes, just to give him a sense of normalcy that his life seemed to lack. It was with this thought still floating through her head that she resolved herself to trying her hardest to ensure that all their time spent together was full of as much happiness as she could give him.

Once Harry finished sealing away the thoughts of betrayal that came from reading the letters, he looked over at Tonks and noticed a flash of determination cross her face before it softened again, he wasn't sure what it was about, all he knew was if she hadn't been there with him it was likely that he would have destroyed his room. Figuring that they needed to lighten the atmosphere in the room, since it had managed to become more depressing than a visit from Snape, Harry began to joke, 'you know, this has to be a new record, even for Hermione, she managed to say the three most depressing things she could have chosen, in under five minutes,' Harry gave a small chuckle while shaking his head, he finished by tossing the third and final letter in to the bin with the others, before the crumpled piece of parchment even hit the bin he had pulled Tonks into a very sensual Kiss before calling it a night.

**_--- Scene Break – July 11th - #12 Grimmauld Place ---_**

'Merlin help us, we have been at this for almost five hours already Mr. Weasley and so far you are the only one who hasn't managed to even make the smallest amount of success.' Spat the dark haired, dark clad figure standing to the back of the room. 'Even Granger there has managed to have some effect.' Ground out the man.

'Sir, to be fair this isn't even taught at Hogwarts until our seventh year. So it is only right that Ron might have some difficulty in doing it.' Hermione reasoned.

'Oh here it is miss know it all, sticking her nose in where it doesn't belong yet again.' He spat, as he turned his glare towards the bushy haired witch who had decided to make her presence known. 'Then tell me miss know it all, why is it that Miss Weasley has so far managed to out perform her older brother? Merlin knows why it is that I have to be the one to help you insufferable brats with this, surely Albus could have chosen someone else to try, and I do mean _try_, to teach you non-verbal spell casting. I have far better things to do than waste my time on the lot of you, more so if you're not even going to put any effort into it.'

'Why you snarky son of a…' Ron cursed as he began to move towards the potions master, only to be cut off by his best friend before he could complete his comment.

'Sir You know as well as we do that it is important that we get as much training as is possible if we hope to survive the coming battle. I am sure the headmaster felt it would be best if you were the one to teach us since your excellence in Occlumency gives you a great advantage in this field.'

'Do you _ever_ shut up…? ' He ground out in frustration. 'And for your information Ms. Granger this is basic spell work that is taught in sixth year not seventh like you mentioned before.' He couldn't help but smirk as a look of abject horror spread across the young witches face. 'That will be all for today, Do try to get it right next time. Otherwise I may decide that this isn't worth my time and effort and choose not to teach you at all.' He said before turning on heal and stalking from the room, his robes billowing behind.

As soon as the man was clearly out of sight Ron piped up. 'Since when has he ever taught us anything, and what the hell did he mean that this stuff is sixth year stuff. I thought we were to be getting advanced training… not more school work.'

A/N: Ok so let me get this out of the way, I am sorry for taking so long with this chapter. Though I had some trouble getting the ideas to flow the way I wanted, along with finding the time to work on it. I know that it is the same excuses that everyone uses when they are way over due for a posting (coming up on three months now) but hey it's the best I have at the moment, so sorry. Though it is likely I wouldn't even have this chapter done yet if not for the help of Stygius.Magic, with their help I was finally able to organize the thoughts needed to finish this section of the story. They have also been so kind as to give me some ideas on things to do with Harry, namely Harry's Animagus form, and his Metamorphmagus ability. So thanks again for you help with that.

Anyway I should be cutting this short as I still have work to do on the next chapter, I wouldn't expect it right away since I can now only access the computer on the weekends (given I work away from home) but I will try not too take so long with this one. The nice thing is that chapter three is at least half way complete at the moment so it shouldn't take nearly this long. I hope you have enjoyed the chapter and I look forward to hearing your responses.

Thanks

Looneylupinsrevenge.


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